


The Heist

by manderelee



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-25 03:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 149,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3794920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manderelee/pseuds/manderelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Lan Fan is a bodyguard for hire, Ling is trying to dismantle his father's business, and together they get into some serious shenanigans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hey guys! Some of you might already be familiar with this story from its corresponding posting at FanFiction.net. Initially I didn't want to post it here, because it meant getting an account, and I am already on too many platforms. But I realized that I might have readers who don't have FanFiction.net accounts, so I decided to give it a try.
> 
> This story was born from a really crazy idea that wasn't supposed to be anything other than a one teaser chapter. But I saw that there seemed to be an interest in it, and I also didn't want to give up on yet another story, so I tried to streamline my writing approach, plan the whole thing, and continue it. Hopefully, some of you might like it!

Operation Greed did not work. That should have been unsettling enough in itself, but with the girl bleeding to death in his arms, that was that last thing he needed to worry about. For now. He'd get another chance in the future... if he lived through this. With the smell of blood and refuse assaulting his nose, Ling rushed through the labyrinth of the underground sewers; his pursuers had been at him for almost an hour now, persistent even in this cold. The last gunshot he'd heard was only several minutes behind them, not far enough that he could stop.

Ling didn't see the muck, and only felt his weight give in as his left foot skidded over the paved walkway of the sewers. The next thing he knew, he and the girl were spitting out foul-tasting fluid, as they flailed to get back up on the walkway from the sluggish current of the sewage water.

_Damn, damn, damn._

He grabbed her around her torso and almost tossed her up like a ragdoll onto the pavement. The gash where her left arm should have been was gaping open, the cloth he had tied hastily around it now swimming away with the rest of the filth down the sewer.

 _Damn it._ If that wound hadn't been infected before, it definitely would be now.

Ling climbed to follow her, then picked her up from the ground where she writhed in silent agony. He ran to the nearest corner he could find, where he settled her down. Her face was pasty, and he could no longer tell if the wetness damping her skin was sweat or sewage. Quickly, he ripped away her shirt down the left shoulder; the stump was an ugly mess of blood and severed flesh and bone, and there were some slight burns evident on her skin. He took off his mask, his coat, then his shirt. He hadn't sunk low enough in the sewer water for the top part of his clothes to be tainted, and though far from the sanitary bandage this girl needed, it was the best he could do, the best he had. He covered the wound first with his mask, then wrapped his shirt around the stump, as tightly as he could, wincing against her voiceless scream. When he'd tied the knot, he settled her on his lap, as he crouched in the corner, trying to be as small as possible. His breathing and the slush of the water were the only sounds present, and Ling strained his ear to hear any signs of pursuit.

After several tense moments, he slumped down against the wall, clutching the girl to him. It was cold. He was shirtless and tired, scared and more than a little disappointed. In himself. In everyone else. In his father. But what else did he expect?

 _I expected it to work_.

Was that it? Had he been over-confident? Had he overlooked something in his plans, a loophole, a careless mistake, anything? He knew the operation had been dangerous, but if they were risking more than they could afford, the plan had been to stop and surrender the documents.

No, he hadn't overlooked anything. But he'd been naïve. He hadn't expected them to kill Shai even after he'd offered to give them back the notebook, and then Ling had been too angry to stay at his hiding spot. He'd attacked the three men, took the notebook from Shai's pocket, and thought he'd make it to Roundhouse Avenue, where some of the military men had been strategically placed late this night.

But the explosion had been unexpected. And he couldn't leave the girl behind. She was the only one alive when he came to where the explosion had taken place. Three of the dead had been members of the Dealers Guild, including their leader. The others had been innocent, like this girl, caught up in the street ruckus. And now Greed was on the verge of exposure, with the remaining three dealers hot on his heels.

He looked down. He didn't even know her name.

"It's okay," he said. Lied, more like it. Her arm was _severed_. There was nothing okay about that. "I'll keep you safe, don't worry."

He only realized the croaking, dry sound he was hearing was her voice, when he felt her breath against his cheek.

"Leave me."

He chuckled though it wasn't funny. "Ha ha. For someone bleeding to death, you've got a sure sense of

humour."

"Please, leave me. You have to go."

He ignored her. He wasn't about to leave someone who needed help, someone who suffered because of his carelessness. There had been no helping the others, but he'd seen her, struggling against the weight of a crushed, upturned vehicle, and unfortunately pulling her out meant leaving behind an arm. Despite that, she could still live. She still had a chance.

"What's your name?" he asked, but if he did so out of a sad attempt to pacify his racing heart or to stop her from passing out – maybe both, since he'd always wanted too much – he did not know. She stayed quiet, observing his face for a moment, a puzzled look coming over hers. Ling realized this was the first time she'd seen it. But she didn't say anything, and after a while, she just looked away.

 _Well, duh._ She wouldn't say her name. She'd already lost an arm, why would she want to get further involved?

"Don't you have family?" he asked. "What would happen to them if you died today?"

Her eyes gained a brief spark, as if half remembering something important, but she still wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Just think of them," he continued. "You won't be dying for them today."

She'd already closed her eyes. Not a good sign. Ling braced himself, and stood back up, muscles protesting against the cold. If he could just get back up, Mei might still be waiting at Roundhouse Avenue with Hawkeye, but they'd attract too much attention. Their smell alone might make anyone reluctant to help them. They were already far from the financial district, so telling someone they were innocent passersby who got injured might seem a little incredulous.

And he couldn't afford it. People would ask for his name. He'd already lost his mask. His father had never been one to mind him, but he would wonder what Ling was doing there at the same time the document was stolen and the clients got killed. How was he going to get help for this girl?

He's just going to have to leave her with someone he could trust while he made the slip. He'd have to call for Hawkeye to discreetly collect the girl, make a story as to why an injured girl had been loitering in the Amestrian sewers for an hour, and they could both be saved.

Ling placed the girl down, trying to get her comfortably settled against the wall, but this time she insisted on standing on her feet. Well, at least this was a tough one he got caught up with. All the more reason she wouldn't die, he told himself. He shook his pack off from his shoulders, opened it and dug around for a cellphone. Hopefully at least one of them was still good, even after the small dip in the water. There wasn't any signal, however, where they were standing.

"Stay here," he told her, though he doubted she could have moved far even if she decided, for some unfathomable reason, to run away from him. "I'm going to get you some help."

"Aren't you going to run away? They could still be looking for you," she rasped.

Sucks that the person who had to be around to help her was the one the thugs had been after.

He didn't know where the explosion came from. It wasn't in the plan, and Ling's team didn't bring the kind of equipment required for that kind of destruction. But half the members of the Dealers Guild died in it. Did someone else want them dead? Or perhaps his father...

An explosion was not his father's usual style. He usually kept things on the low, out of the radar of the State Military, but even when things got sticky, his top-notch lawyer could pluck him out of any jar, and really, the hardest thing about XYZ Ltd. was that it was actually _legal_. Was it pleasant? Nope. Was it corrupted? Yep. But it was legal. It was actually really difficult to get his father thrown in jail. Something Ling was just learning.

Who would take the blame for the bomb now? Ling shuddered to think about it.

"If they were still after me, we couldn't have stopped," he said, which was true. "I think they gave up. At least, I think they've stopped chasing us. They could be waiting, trying to sniff me out. But don't you worry about me. I'll slip through this."

Ling found another manhole with a few small holes. He positioned himself near it, and luckily, the signal bar increased a bit from nothing. He dialed Hawkeye's number, and she sounded as calm as she normally was when she answered. Ling didn't know how she could keep up such composure.

"Emergency," he told her.

"I heard about the explosion. Last time you had called me about an emergency, you asked where you can find the nearest restaurant that sells maki sushi." He heard her sigh. "This was not what I expected."

"Believe me, none of us were expecting _this_." He paused, looking back at the girl. "Look, I need a big favour."

The lieutenant came after a few minutes. Ling hoisted the injured girl over his shoulder and emerged from the nearest man-hole he could find close to where Riza had parked. He laid her down in Riza's car.

"Who's this?" she asked. "We can't allow anyone else to get involved."

"She was still alive after the explosion," Ling explained. "I couldn't just leave her behind."

Riza still looked reluctant, but she didn't protest. "Where's Shai?"

Ling gulped. "He's gone." Easy-going, happy Shai. He'd been a very eager volunteer. Ling hadn't even known him a year, but the boy had quick hands and nothing else to look forward to in life. His family had been financially crippled by Ling's father's business, and he wanted to at least to dip his toes in some revenge.

"You were supposed to hide!"

"I know! But..." Ling pulled the small notebook from his pocket. "We were so close. Here, have that. Maybe there'd be evidence of the Guild's connection with my father in there. All of their contracts are supposed to be outlined in detail there."

Riza took it. "I'll hand it over to Mustang. Even if your father isn't mentioned, this would still provide us with their other transactions. It will be helpful." And before she drove away, she gave him a sad smile. "Thank you."

"Make sure the girl gets the help she needs," Ling reminded her.

"The best.”

-o-

_2 Years Later_

Lan Fan swirled her straw in the plastic cup, trying to hone in on one of the tapioca balls at the bottom. When her straw managed to trap one, she sipped it up happily. She tried lichee bubble tea this time, on her persistent mission to fill up the nine stamps on her Tealicious card. The reward was a plastic water bottle, not much, but why not enjoy her time? Bubble tea was an inexpensive indulgence, something she could actually afford, and at least the water bottle was free. She could always use more free things in her life.

“Why not try a real drink?” A voice beside her called, and she looked to her left where the bartender was pouring a glass of whatever alcoholic beverage a customer had ordered. Lan Fan was sitting at the corner of the night club, near a small, less crowded bar. Nobody had bothered her all night, but she was basically a walking sign of “Not Interested,” with her baggy sweater, even baggier sweatpants, and the set of unmusical bones in her body. She wasn't here to have fun. She was on duty.

“I can't,” she told the bartender, a short, middle-aged man who looked slightly out of place in a night club frequented by college students from the community school down the block. She lifted a fancy phone provided by her client earlier that night. “I'm supposed to get them home safely tonight. Have to remain sober.”

“Ah,” the man smiled not unkindly, though he must have guessed why she held up a phone, rather than a set of car keys. “Smart. Though your friends should have called you over when they're done. You don't look like you're enjoying your time here at all, and a young person like you looks like you could use your time doing other things.”

She shrugged, looking out over the dance floor, trying to pick out the trio of redheads she was assigned to watch. The truth was that she was hired to eliminate any trouble that may crop up, or prevent them in the first place. Mr. and Mrs. Gries were protective of their daughters, and woe was the person who'd scratch their precious little heads. One of the girls – Hannah, maybe, or Roxanna, Lan Fan couldn't quite get their names right – was swaying out of beat.

“I don't think they'd be sober enough to have called me,” she responded.

The man nodded sympathetically. “Well, liquor isn't all that we sell. If you're still craving some tea after that, you're welcome to choose from our wide collections.”

Lan Fan nodded, and pretended she didn't see his lingering look at the shapeless sleeve of her sweater.

She didn't mind doing this. It was good money. Usually she charged an hourly rate, depending on the type of job and who she was supposed to look after. If anything dangerous came up, she reserved a right to charge an additional fee for taking care of it. Normally her clients tended to be the ones who needed guarding, but tonight was different. The ones paying her were the Grieses, not their daughters. If something were to happen, she'd need proof of the incident to be able to charge the extra fees. It didn't look like the three girls would be credible witnesses, not in their state. She'd just have to be extra careful.

Lan Fan finished her bubble tea, and waited until the hands on her watch signaled 1:30 am. Then, as much as she hated to mingle in the crowd, she pushed her way between gyrating bodies to where the Gries girls were dancing. One of them – Roxana or Savannah, she long ago gave up trying to figure out which – gladly reached out for her, looking quite relieved.

“My sisters didn't want to go yet,” she yelled, over the loud, pumping music. Lan Fan blinked her eyes against the flashing lights. “Maybe you can convince them.”

It was easy to see where one of the sisters were; only several dance steps away, her bright red hair was unmistakeable. Lan Fan latched her only arm around the girl's shoulders, and steadily led her away.

“Hey!” she yelled. Lan Fan rolled her eyes.

“Time to go, Roxana.”

“It's Anna!”

“Alright, Anna. It's 1:30. Your parents are waiting. I'll get in trouble if I don't bring you back on time.”

One of the men who were dancing with Anna asserted himself right on her path. A good foot taller than her, it was unlikely that Lan Fan could slip gracefully around him, especially with Anna in tow, and a dozen bodies cramping up the space. She sighed. She wasn't really supposed to make trouble. If she started something, her clients would think that she did it on purpose so she could charge her extra fees. Nope, if Lan Fan was going to get any more clients, she wanted to be as honest as possible in how she handled her jobs.

“Hey, she and her sisters need to go home,” she said, her voice steady and unyielding, but non-threatening. Gosh, how she hated having to talk people down like this. She wasn't paid to be a kindergarten teacher handling infants prone to temper tantrums. She was a bodyguard!

“Not if I say they're not,” the man said, his words a little more than just slightly slurred. Lan Fan rolled her eyes. Did drunk people really had a penchant to sound like comic book characters?

“Look, I don't want trouble,” Lan Fan said, though how much the guy understood by the way he was swaying, she couldn't tell. She tried to circumnavigate him, but a few other people, boys and girls, blocked her way.

This was going to give her a headache.

“Savannah, get your other sister and wait outside,” Lan Fan called to the younger Gries daughter, who only pouted and said that she was Roxana.

“You want a taste of my knuckle sandwich, girly?” Again, it was the man imposing his six-feet self in their way.

“Are you kidding me?” Lan Fan said. “You got that line straight out of a movie!” She began inching her way forward, dragging Anna along with her. The poor girl was staring at the disco lights above, humming the rap out of tune. “Please move.” Ugh, someone tell her she wasn't going to have to grovel.

He didn't budge. Lan Fan kept her head low, trying to fight the instinct to just kick his feet from underneath him, and scathe her way out of the club. Gosh, it would be much easier that way. Perhaps, she could. That would help her a lot, and she didn't need to charge the fee if _she_ was giving herself _less_ trouble.

But the consequences could be ugly, and she didn't want to be the instigator of any legal breaches.

She tried to force her way around him, but he grabbed her by her shirt and shoved her back. Good. As long as he made the first move. She tried again, and this time he shoved her harder. Lan Fan maintained her balance, but Anna went sprawling over the dance floor. Quick as lightning, Lan Fan snapped her phone out of her pocket and took a quick picture of the girl reclining on the floor, then flashed a shot at the man blocking their way.

Proof. It was all she needed.

She bent down on one knee and swept her other leg around, bringing three of the drunks down to their posteriors. The surrounding dancers finally stopped their twerking to look down at what was going on. One of the man's friends was now red-faced and growling, surely pissed – and embarrassed – that a young, one-armed girl had taken down his pals. They never learn, did they? Lan Fan had been in similar fights the past few years, and it had always been the same reaction. What would it take for people to stop associating size with strength and skills?

Red-faced boy tried to swipe a punch, which Lan Fan easily caught; she twisted his arm around his back, and motioned for Anna to stand up.

“Come on,” she nodded her head toward the exit. “We're wasting our time. Your parents would be angry.”

Anna pushed her bouncy hair out of her face, as if trying to ascertain that she really saw what she just saw. It didn't matter. Come tomorrow morning, none of the girls, except perhaps for Roxana – or was it Savannah? – would remember that there'd been trouble in the club at all. They probably wouldn't even remember her.

Lan Fan only realized that she was still twisting Red-faced-boy's arm when he let out a nasally yowl. She released him just in time as Anna stumbled in her arm, and she led the girl out of the club.

The cool air hit her hard, a stark contrast against the humid, sweaty atmosphere of the club. She could still taste lichee in her mouth, and the caramel flavouring of the tapioca. If there were no other incidents, it had been a rather easy night.

Lan Fan had called the cab before collecting the girls from the dance floor, and she could see it waiting by the curb. She packed the girls into it. She didn't have a car of her own, at least not at the moment. It was being repaired; the modifications for one-armed driving was quite expensive and difficult to maintain. And even if it had been available, she doubted that the Grieses, whose yearly income was surely six-figures, would allow their daughters to be seen in a run-down patchwork of metal.

It was about an hour ride to the mansion. When they rolled into the driveway, she helped the girls exit and maneuver their way to the front door, though really it was mostly Anna who was tipsily struggling along, even though her stilettos were dangling from her fingers, and she was barefoot on the cobblestones. Savannah, the sister she hadn't seen much at the club still oozed energy and radiance.

When Roxana unlocked the door, the Grieses came excitedly to greet them.

 _Heh, they stayed up to wait for their daughters?_ That was in a way quite endearing, but also a little overbearing, Lan Fan thought. What would she think if her grandfather hovered over her every outings? But then again, it was unlikely he'd catch her coming home at midnight drunk from a club.

Well... it was more likely he'd catch her coming home at midnight with one arm less and no explanation to boot. She refused to wonder which one was worse, because really, when it came down to it, those two things couldn't be compared at all.

Mr. Gries was a portly, balding man with red cheeks and an easy smile that belied a steel core. The Grieses didn't get to where they were by smiling at strangers.

“Now how much would it be?” He took out his cheque book from the inside of his pyjamas – eh, did they sleep on money too? “I distinctly remember your hourly rate to be 50 sens. That would total 200 sens for the night, unless of course... there have been 'incidents', as you call them.” His pen hovered over the cheque pad.

Lan Fan took out her phone, which she had slipped into her sweatpants' pocket after the fight, and navigated to the stock of photos.

“Only one, sir.” She handed him the picture she took of Anna on the floor, and the other of the obviously antagonistic young man hovering over them both.

Mrs. Gries peered at the pictures through her glasses. “Hmm... seems a bit nasty to me.” Then she gave Lan Fan a once-over, before pursing her lip. “Though I don't see why he'd be a problem for _you_ , if you really are as good as they say. As _you_ say.”

The Grieses had hired her through word of mouth; most of Lan Fan's clients came to her that way. She hadn't made a reputation yet to have so many offers at her beck and call, nor did she think it would be a good idea. To be known and popular... well, it worked quite ironically within her field. She'd be the first on the elimination list of any jerk with a grudge.

“No, it wasn't that bad. So let's say an extra two hundred.” Lan Fan replied, glad to have had the first chance to name the price. She rarely got the advantage when her clients named it first.

“A hundred,” Mr. Gries replied promptly.

“A hundred fifty.”

The Grieses gave each other a look. Lan Fan straightened her stance, shoulders rolling back to assert her height, though she was only as tall as Mrs. Gries. Two hundred was a bargain already. And looking at that fancy door knocker, Lan Fan knew that the Grieses could afford it; wouldn't hurt them one bit if she guessed right.

“Alright,” Mr. Gries finally said, signing the cheque and handing it over to her. Lan Fan gave a small smile, and nodded her head appreciatively.

“Thank you,” she said. “It was nice working for you and the girls.”

They only smiled back at her, and Lan Fan had a distinct notion that they knew they'd gotten away cheaply. She just bit her lip, and turned to go.

“Oh wait!” Mrs. Gries called out, and when Lan Fan turned around, a big cardboard box was shoved in her way.

“Some left-over pizza,” she said, opening the box to reveal one still whole pizza, greasy with melted cheese, but looking quite the deluxe that it was. Lan Fan couldn't help but smile; normally, it might irk her to know how others tended to see her as a charity case, but she rarely refused an opportunity for something free if it came knocking on the door. “You look like you could gain a pound.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and meant it. She tucked the box between her arm and her hip, and started the twenty minute walk to the nearest public transit station. It would take her yet another two hours to get home, but she'd rather lose the three sens, than spend the entire hundred fifty bonus fee on a cab. She didn't mind. At least for the rest of the day, she and her grandfather wouldn't have to worry about what to eat. That was a breather, considering her grandfather had been getting worse lately.

-o-

“How about a boys' night out?”

“You know my brother kinda hates you, right?” Al's soft-toned voice came through the receiver, a little chuckle following the reminder.

“Then let's not bring him!” Ling suggested. “He's a party-pooper anyway.”

“He'll never forgive me for ditching him.”

Ling sighed, shuffling through the papers stacked on his desk. He'd foregone another night of sleep in favour of a a sudden hit of inspired planning. His mother sternly told him to turn the other cheek for now and get a life, _his_ own life, but that was a little difficult, given everything that had happened, everything that he knew. She knew too. He wondered how she could sleep knowing she hadn't done anything about it.

Well, maybe she was. But she was a lot more patient than him, that was for certain.

“Look, I need a sounding board for ideas.”

There was a pause on the other side, and he could almost feel Al slowing down his walk to the University.

“Ideas, Ling?”

“ _Ideas_.”

“Not for the new Operation Greed, is it?”

“And what if it is?”

He heard an obvious, exasperated sigh. “I don't even understand why you call it Greed!”

“It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?” Ling asked, though really he had often debated whether the operation was named after his father or himself. Perhaps both... or perhaps he really just had an affinity for the word, if one could, hypothetically, gain affinities for words.

“I don't know,” Alphonse sounded hesitant. “Last time didn't work out so well.”

“So we're just going to give up? That doesn't sound like an Elric _at all._ ” Ling lifted one of the papers, a blueprint of his father's new office. He didn't know yet what use it would be to him since his father tended to conduct business in places other than the office itself, but still. An office was bound to have valuables stowed away in there somewhere, and with the plan still in shabby frameworks, he didn't know what he would end up needing.

“Besides, even if Dad's business is still in tact, it didn't mean that the last mission had been a complete failure. We delivered the Dealers Guild's documents to Mustang, so at least that's–” he counted his fingers off, “eight cases solved.” The Dealers Guild hadn't actually been a guild. It had been a name of an underground gang of drug dealers, who catered specifically to individuals of influence. Super stars, politicians, even doctors and lawyers... a dozen had been charged of the purchase and possession of illegal drugs after Mustang and his team had cracked the code.

The leader of the gang had a habit of writing down their dealings in a small pocket notebook. It had been coded, of course, but all the transactions were still aggregated into less than two hundred pages of pulp, an easy evidence if one could obtain it.

That notebook had been The Collateral.

“But all the members of the Dealers Guild were already dead,” Alphonse reminded him.

That was right. Only those who had collaborated with the Guild had faced the law; none of the actual members had the opportunity to be tried. Ling remembered when he'd assumed that the remaining members, those who did not perish in the explosion, were laying low, trying to wait him out from the sewers. But after he'd gone up, later he found from Hawkeye that they'd been shot dead. None of the members had lived past that night.

There was also one person he never found again, but he tried to keep her out of his mind nowadays.

Ling pulled the elastic bounding his hair, and remade his pony-tail.

“It doesn't matter. We still made things better,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster. Because honestly, if they didn't, he didn't know how he was going to sleep knowing he was just as much of a monster as his father was.

“Alright,” Alphonse said, yet Ling still sensed the 'but' coming. “But don't you think it would be better not to get Mustang's new mission involved in all this?”

“Al, they're going to be investigating Auto-Mail,” Ling clarified. “Even if we're not using it for Operation Greed, we'd still have to get involved.”

“Yes, I know,” Al said, sounding pained. Through the receiver, Ling heard another sigh. “It's just that, that would be complex enough. Adding your part in? It could get dangerous really quickly.”

“Yes,” Ling said, echoing him in all seriousness. “I know.” But this could be the only opportunity they had.

Alphonse quickly bid him farewell as he approached his classroom. Ling heard the lingering angry honk of a car, before the sounds were cut off from his phone. Putting it down, he tucked the papers away in the drawers of his desk, but not before catching the insignia on the blueprint he'd been inspecting.

XYZ Ltd.

It was one of the richest money-lending companies in the continent, with clients hailing from Western Amestris all the way to the satellite nations east of Xing. It was also universally dubbed as 7-11; borrow 7 sens now, owe 11 sens by the end of the month. In exchange for the high interests, clients could borrow money whenever they wanted, however they wanted it. No questions asked. It was a gift and a curse for anyone desperate for money. Even the _government_ borrowed money from it. It sounded well-meaning enough, and Ling had been fooled for the first decade of his life too.

But it was also one of the most corrupt companies in the world. The lynchpin of each agreement was a thing called The Collateral. Very important. Until the money and the interest could all be paid in full, his father required the client to provide him something that could ensure the loyalty of the payments. From Ling's research on his father's company, collaterals had ranged from precious family heirlooms, to family members themselves. It ground his gears.

Nobody else batted an eyelash. All the nasty stuff were swept under the carpet thanks to the government's involvement, and nobody was the wiser for it.

Ling wanted the Guild's collateral, because he'd assumed that their agreement with his father would be there. He'd been wrong. And he missed his chance to reveal to the world exactly what kind of business his father was running.

He stalked out of the study, and went to his bedroom, hopping on the bed with his laptop. Despite what Alphonse had said, Ling knew that Edward didn't hate him. No, they were friends, for goodness' sake! Grudging ones, but friends nonetheless, and the grudge part was not mutual anyway; only Ed carried it. Why, their last fight had only been about his height! Not much to cry about, if anyone asked Ling.

He fired up his email and sent a quick message to Ed.

 _'Needing a kind, supportive buddy right now,'_ he wrote. Well, what he really needed was a co-mastermind, but he doubted he'd find anyone up that alley. He'd settle for a passive consultant, or maybe anyone with a business streak. Either way, what he needed was someone knowledgeable in self-defense, with more than a variety of tricks up their sleeves. _'Someone who'd stick around 24/7.'_ This requirement was effective immediately, and he'd need to know that there was a potential availability. Especially when they got around to the final stages of his plan.

_'And no, not you. Just asking for a rec.'_

Sure, he and Ed had their differences. But Ling still trusted him enough to know that Ed wouldn't send someone who'd stick a knife in his neck while he slept.

-o-

Lan Fan stayed in bed until ten in the morning, though she did get up at six to administer her grandfather's medicine. She slept for only a couple of hours, but she didn't feel sleepy anymore. However, the comforts of her old, ratty blanket were a guilty pleasure of hers, and they coaxed her back to dawdle on her mattress.

She picked up the small, clear bottle of medicine she kept in her small cabinet. They were down to the last few drops of the red, gooey stuff. Perhaps it'd last till the end of the week. She had money to purchase another bottle, but each one lasted only a month at best. If her grandfather was under the weather more than usual, it lasted even less than that.

And this crap was expensive. It was getting more expensive every month. Lan Fan's fist tightened around the bottle, and almost began berating herself again for being a fool. She barely completed the payment last month.

Truth be told, Lan Fan's bodyguarding brought in decent money; they could have lived comfortably, still on the humble side perhaps if she decided to go to school, but with the medicine, they were barely scraping by. It wasn't even her life, however, that she'd come to lament.

She remembered Fu as a lithe, agile man, not burly or big, but packed and dense. He wasn't like a mountain, not in the way most people would think of warriors, but rather, like the wind during a typhoon. It was sometimes still difficult for her to accept that he was the same man as the shriveled up shell on the bed, resembling more a prune than any force of nature. That, more than anything, was worth lamenting about.

She missed her grandfather, their times of greeting the dawn with a quick martial arts lesson, their after-dinner walks in the park. He'd been a strict, guiding hand while she was growing up, and though he could use one more tender bone in his body, he'd never been someone to fear. At least, she'd never had.

Lan Fan jumped out of her bed, carefully replacing the bottle back in the cabinet. She needed a job. Several jobs. Or maybe one big one, but those hardly came her way.

She made her way to the front door of their apartment, where a few hours earlier she heard the sound of mail crashing through the slot. The facsimile, however, had been quiet for a few days. She and Grandpa lagged a little bit when it came to new technology, but she made do. She even managed to get a cellphone last year; it wasn't smart, but hey, it wasn't dumb either.

Lan Fan shuffled through the envelopes and folded brochures, hoping for any sign of work. She usually made connections to clients through The Auto-Mail, a large, underground network of workers, who helped each other find... _things_. Various things. For most, it was jobs. Once a person had entered the network, they could make regular requests, and lo and behold, information and sources came spilling in the mail.

She tried to space out her jobs appropriately, the high-paying ones from rich clients few and far between, while the more modest clients filling in the rest of the time. She'd only worked with a very wealthy client once, and saying that she didn't like it much could be considered an understatement. She made sure her prices were fair, adjusting them frequently, so that even those who wouldn't normally be able to hire a bodyguard could, and that she'd earn even a little bit.

She found a small note from Paninya, a girl she knew who also used the Auto-Mail network to find odd jobs.

_'I got a big one for you! Give me a call when you get the chance.'_

Paninya. This better not be arsony. Though really, it was a tough time to be picky.

She snapped her flip phone open, and dialed the number. She met Paninya a few years ago when she was still new to Auto-Mail. The girl had specialized outwardly as a construction worker, fixing roofs, touching up skyscrapers... covertly, she specialized (even better) at theft.

“Hey! About time you called,” Paninya said, even before Lan Fan managed to get a hello in.

“What's this about?” Lan Fan asked, getting to the point. “Last time you told me about a job, you conveniently forgot to mention that the person I was going to be guarding would be the person _you're_ stealing from!”

“Don't be sore! Stealing it without you there would have been more like a free giveaway!” Paninya insisted, sounding excited by the mere memories of it. “And trust me, I think this one would be good.”

“What makes you say that?” Lan Fan folded her legs underneath her as she slouched down on the couch. She pinched the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could take a slice of the pizza from the box that Mrs. Gries had given the night before. She savoured the chewy cheese and the spicy meat. It was so good, even though it was cold.

“Well, for one thing, the employer is young.”

“...young?”

“But he's got money, not to worry! I know that's your top priority.”

“When and where?”

“Today actually. High Park, Dublith.”

Today? Paninya's letter came only a few hours ago, judging by the stamp, and she was never the type to let a request lag for long if there was a response available. Someone seemed desperate.

“This isn't some fake stunt, is it? I'm having fishy feelings,” Lan Fan admitted.

“Oh, absolutely not!” Paninya said. “My sources had been good. I didn't have direct contact with the client, but he appears to be a friend of a friend of mine. And this friend's on sweet terms with one of the best Auto-Mail admins out there, so if legit is what you're worried about, don't be. Trust me, this kiddo doesn't consider just about anyone his pal, so for him to be reccing the boy you're gonna work for, well I think it's a pretty solid thing.”

Lan Fan sighed. To be honest, she felt like this with every job she took up. There was always the initial paranoia, the mistrust. Shady people were just everywhere. Who knew where they'd pop up? She wasn't going to lose her remaining arm.

But wasn't she just thinking about getting a job quickly a few moments before? This could be a big break. Even if it wasn't, every little cent counted. And if the employer was young, perhaps he'd be a little more naïve. If she was lucky, he'd be generous. She was determined to get more than a box of pizza this time around.

“I'll do it.”

Paninya gave her the address of the meeting place. It was quite far, in a high-end district that Lan Fan had rarely frequented. It was a long way away, about an hour from the very last station of the public transit, and her car still wasn't fixed. She wondered if she could get the guy to pay her taxi cab to and from the meeting.

Before leaving, she tended her grandfather again. He seemed a little better this time around, waking when she adjusted the towel on his forehead. She brought the box of pizza near him, just in case he wanted to try a little bit, but she also prepared soft-foods and soup, settling them on the bedside table.

“I think I caught a big one this time, Grandpa,” she told him. “I'll be back tonight and I'll tell you all about it.”

The bus and taxi cab ride was as uneventful as she'd expected. But when the taxi deposited her on the manicured lawn of a rather handsome residence, Lan Fan began to feel apprehensive. Unconsciously, her hand patted the dangling sleeve on her left; she'd worn only a simple blouse and jeans. She always made sure she had a routine ready for skills demonstration, but for some people, first impressions could be very important.

She sighed. Nothing she could do about that now; it wasn't like she could run to the nearest mall and purchase a new outfit. She'd be late _and_ she'd waste money. Money that could go to the Red Stone.

Paninya's instructions told her that her employer would be waiting for her in a large study near the back of the house. Lan Fan wouldn't miss it, she said; it was adjacent to a long, rounded hallway, behind two floor-to-ceiling heavy oak doors. Lan Fan felt uncomfortable navigating someone else's home by herself, feeling as if she was an intruder. What did it say about an employer who wouldn't even meet their prospective hire by the door? Was he so self-important that he couldn't leave his study?

Sighing for the second time since arriving, Lan Fan steeled herself. Who cared what kind of personality he had? She'd watch his back, maybe knock out a couple of people, and then get paid. That was all there was to it. If he never left his study, all the better. It was always easier to defend indoor enthusiasts.

She found the designated room, and took a moment to compose herself. It was going to be fine.

Lan Fan pushed the door open and went inside. She only had a moment's opportunity to observe the room, when the door clicked shut behind her, and the room dimmed to barely visible.

Her first instinct was to try and smash the door down, but she'd be leaving herself wide open to what seemed like, on her only glance, a thirty feet by thirty feet curved room. That was too much. She flattened her back by the door, and listened, slowing her breath down to five or six breaths a minute, trying to sense what was in store for her. The room wasn't completely dark. It just mimicked an unlit room in the middle of the night, though where the small amount of light was coming from, she couldn't tell.

She sensed the presence before she saw him or heard him. He came lunging from the right, and she had just enough time to raise her arm to block. She heard a soft, amused chuckle, before she launched herself away from the doorway. Now that she'd found her opponent, there was no use in staying against the door, where she was even more likely to be pushed into a corner.

The figure in front of her was only slightly taller than her, lean and graceful. He didn't appear too imposing, but she out of all people, knew that appearance was never indicative of skills.

And he was damn fast.

In a split second, she found herself blocking his multi-angled attacks, quick but powerful jabs aiming at pressure points. She was swift enough to block them, and multiple times she found herself providing her own set of offensives. When she thought she found an opening, she tried lunging for his neck, but he spun like a weasel out of her grasp, grabbing a loose pile of sheets on a desk and throwing it up between them.

 _Is he trying to distract me_? A pile of paper was a little short-sighted.

Lan Fan then grabbed a lamp on the same desk, and once again heard the amused chuckle, louder this time, and a startled “Woah, that's expensive!” as she swung it around to get to him. Something about his voice nagged at the back of her mind. He shoved her attempts aside, and Lan Fan felt a leg hook against hers. He toppled her to the ground, where she dropped the lamp. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and used his momentum to continue the roll, sending him to the air with her feet. She heard him land on the floor above her head, before she summersaulted, locking him below her with her knees to either side of his waist. With her only hand, she pushed him against the floor, where he looked up at her with a small smile on his lips.

Then the smile vanished.

“ _You,_ ” he said.

And she realized where she'd heard the voice before.

Well... she shouldn't have worried about first impressions. Seemed a little too late for those.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

The girl above him propelled herself up and backwards, almost as if bitten. The lights came back on full power, the three minutes he'd allotted for her test finally up. He blinked as the memory of her ashen and bloody and grime-stained face flashed in his mind, then the sudden guilt. He clambered to his feet, brushing himself off. For the first time since he could remember, he was quite speechless.

The girl stared back at him, wide-eyed. It was difficult to read her expression, but whatever it was reflecting on her face – surprise, anxiety – it was obvious she didn't want to be there. He hadn't recognized her at first. Not at all. Given the fact that during the only time they'd spent, she'd been bloody and disheveled, it wasn't that surprising. Now, she stood there looking like a normal teenager.

As normal as teenagers went with one arm.

He cleared his throat. “Well,” he began, still trying to let his brain catch up. “You're certainly fit for the job.”

Her eyes went even bigger. “ _You're_ my employer?”

“The name's Ling Yao. I told Ed not to release my name, because... you'll find some stuff about me online, and I sort of wanted a clean slate.” He cleared his throat again. “Though I see it's too late for that.”

She began shaking her head as she started to move back towards the door. “I'm... I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't accept this job.” Then she tucked her chin down, opening the door.

“Wait!” Ling rushed after her, grabbing her by her arm. “Hold on! You haven't heard my proposition yet.” She stopped and looked back at him.

“I don't think it's a wise idea that I work for you.”

“Why not?” he persisted. “Look, name your price. I promise I'll deliver.”

Lan Fan. Ed relayed her name to him just a couple of hours ago. So _she_ was Lan Fan. He'd searched for the sewer-girl quite actively for months after the Operation Greed. He wanted, in some way, in _any_ way, to make up for what happened to her.

“Sorry,” she said, and she looked like she meant it. Seemed like she had actually been looking forward to the job. “I truly am, but I think you should find someone else.”

“Why?” he asked, but he knew why. “Look, I know you blame me for... for _that_.” He pointed at her lifeless left sleeve. “But please. I never got a chance to explain. I never even got a chance to help you.”

“Help me?” she interrupted. “You saved my life!”

“No, you don't understand!” He took the cuff of the sleeve, making her flinch, but at least she didn't remove herself from his hold. “This would have never happened if it weren't for me.”

She frowned. “You think that explosion was your fault?”

He nodded.

“How?”

Ling sighed and released her. “Look. It has to do with the job offer. I can't tell you if you're not taking the job.”

Lan Fan blinked at him, taking a moment to evaluate her situation. Then she nodded. “Right. It's only fair. You don't have to tell me. I'm leaving.” She went out to the hallway.

“A million!” he called out to her.

That stopped her dead in her tracks. Slowly, hesitantly, she turned back to him. “A million what?”

“A million sens. That's my base offer for your services.”

She looked at him as if he'd thrown up a pink unicorn. “A _million_?”

“And I can get you prosthesis,” he added. “It might be helpful in your line of work.”

“The absence of my left arm had never hindered me,” she said and there was a small glint of pride behind the frown she sent him.

“No, I don't think so,” Ling admitted. Their fight minutes ago definitely proved that. “But just say the word, and I will get you hooked up with a really good doctor. I know this guy, Dr. Marcoh, and he's so kind and generous he'd do any kind of work, sometimes even for free. Look, actually, you don't even have to take the job for this. Let me do this for you!”

“You don't owe me anything,” she said, and she squared her shoulders, looking at him intently. “You already saved my life. I don't know why you think that whole thing was your fault, but if it makes you feel better, I don't blame you. I never did. You don't have to do me favours.”

“So what you're saying,” Ling began again. “Is that we're on a clean slate.”

“Clean.”

“Then you'd understand that I'm still interested in hiring you, because regardless of explosions and sewage-trips and whatnot, I can still use someone with your skill set.”

“You did pretty well yourself back there,” she said, nodding in the direction of the circular study.

“Yes, but there's an advantage of having someone watch your back for you. It's not like I can defend myself while I'm eating or while I'm in the bathroom–”

“You want me to defend you while you're in the bathroom?” she asked, eyes suspicious and incredulous.

Ling sighed. He hadn't imagined that it would be this difficult to bargain with a potential employee, especially when he hadn't even begun relating the job description. He'd anticipated some hesitations against the job, because gee... it wasn't even really legal (almost, they'd slip by), which was why he couldn't really reveal any information unless Lan Fan first agreed to take him up.

“How about two million?” he suggested.

“I don't want that much money,” she said. Ling expected that. When he first got the Elric brothers on board with Operation Greed, they hadn't wanted his money either.

“How about an all you can eat buffet?” he added, sweetening his tone. “Which part of Xing did you hail from? You look like you could have been from the southwest–”

“Tong Hua actually,” she interjected. “Satellite state.”

“Perfect! I know just the place!”

“I'm tempted, but no.”

“How about my first kiss?” he leaned towards her, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. She made a face. Clearly she wasn't impressed, and Ling pulled back, scratching his brain for more bribes.

“Look,” she began, her right hand reaching out to play with her left sleeve. “All I need to know right now is for how long it would be and how risky it is.”

Ling whistled. At least she was contemplating about it now. “I need a bodyguard 24/7, effective immediately, which means if you agree to it, you'll be starting right now. It could take as long as one to two months. As for risks... right now that is very difficult to calculate, because the job is still in its planning stages. Part of your job is to help me plan. So if you agree to work for me, you'd also get to determine some of the risks you can take. Though if you want a rough estimate, it could mean anything from a few scratches to a lifetime in prison to a few dead.”

Lan Fan bit her lip, clearly weighing her options.

“I provide food and accommodations,” he continued. “You'll need to live here with me and Mom, and if I go anywhere you have to come with me. That mostly means school and the occasional restaurant. And of course, trips to... places related to the job. If you're worried about family, let me know and I'll set them up somewhere safe.”

“Accessible?”

“Anytime.”

She began to nod appreciatively. Ling gave her a few minutes to make up her mind. If he started to push more reasons on her, she'll just sense his desperation and might turn him down.

Finally, she spoke. “My grandfather needs medical attention.”

“I can provide that too.”

She nodded. “Okay. I'll do it.”

He smiled. He knew he could rely on Ed!

“Alright, come this way,” he said, walking briskly down the hallway. “To start this all off, you need to know about my family. You might know my father as Henry Chu.”

“ _The_ Henry Chu?” she exclaimed, in sync with his steps. “Of 7-11?” She stopped walking all of a sudden, eying him with the largest wide-eyed stare he had ever been given.

Ling cringed. He knew this was coming. It was exactly why he'd asked Ed to withhold mentioning his name to the potential hire. Everyone knew Henry Chu. Some admired him. Some, like Ling, preferred to think the world a better place without the businessman. Most people, however, just wanted to stay out of his way.

“That's right. Which is why I didn't want my name revealed right away. I didn't want my father influencing your decision to come.”

“ _Influence?_ ” she backtracked her steps, and Ling's heart began to pound with nervousness, watching the way her face contorted into disgust. “Henry Chu is an occupational hazard!”

Ling lifted both of his hands in an attempt to pacify her obvious growing panic.

“Hey, yes, I know that,” he said. He didn't know quite what to do if she ended up walking out on him after all, especially now that she knew that the job had to do with his father. With 7-11. Just a small piece of knowledge like that could get someone in deep trouble. “But to be totally honest with you, this job is chock-full of occupational hazards, with Henry Chu or not.”

She ran her only hand through her hair, looking away into the distance. All of a sudden it seemed as if the risks he had described earlier fell on her in a completely different light.

“What bothers you more?” Ling said, wanting to get something straight. “That this is about Chu, or that I am his son?”

She paused, then laughed bitterly, as if he had to ask.

He straightened his back, feeling all the weight of the man's name on him.

“I don't know what issues you have with my father and I'm not going to ask, but if you're like the rest of the people I know, he's probably done you or someone you know wrong. So let's just say that we're starting on similar footing. Whatever you think you know about my father, trust me that I know more.” She gave him a doubtful glance, which made him curious, but he brushed it off for now. Now, he needed her on his side.

He sighed, stepping closer to her. This was his biggest bargaining chip.

“As your employer, I take full responsibility in protecting you at all costs. It will be my head before yours, before your family,” he said, and he meant it. It had always been his deal with everyone who worked with him. “Please, stay.”

She was quiet for while, and his words echoed in his head, replaying as if they wanted to bind him to his death oath over and over. Then finally, she shut her eyes and shook her head, muttering “I'm going to regret this” under her breath, but when she looked back to him, her eyes were full of solid determination that had not been there before, even when she had initially agreed. Had he stricken a chord?

“I'm still in,” she said.

He smiled at her, though she didn't quite return it. It didn't matter. He began his walk down the hallway again, making sure she followed.

“So, you already know that I have some qualms about 7-11. My father gets away with a ton of crap that normal people wouldn't. With many politicians as some of his biggest clients, it's in the interest of the government to keep his dealings on the down low. Remember the weapons used during the Sanitary Movement? Funded by my Dad. Now, you want to know about the explosion?” he looked back at her, and she gave him a resolute nod.

“A couple of years ago, I made a plan to reveal the kind of business my father engages in. The first step was to taint the name of his business by showing he was funding illegal drug imports. The Dealers Guild was one of the largest groups in the business of illegal drug trade, and they catered to some of the most trusted and adored names in pop culture.

“Now my father never gives money away without insurance. He calls this The Collateral. He agreed to loan five million sens to the Dealers Guild in exchange for a list of all their transactions with anyone who had ever conducted business with them, drug purchases or otherwise. This was easy, because the guild had a list anyway. All I had to do, at least I thought at the time, was to steal this book, prove that my father had transacted with them, and boom, down goes 7-11.

“It was myopic,” he said, pausing to open the door to his bedroom, remembering Shai's blank eyes. She stopped at the doorway, however, and began to eye his bed with obvious precaution.

“What?” he asked. “I have a secret study on the other side.”

“Mhmm,” she grunted and eyed him cautiously, but didn't take a step in.

“Hey, I'm no lech!” he put his hands up in mock surrender. “I swear! I've only been on like two dates.” She gave him an expressive look that could have said either _I can see why_ , or _Then you must be desperate._

“My mother's coming in a few minutes,” he assured her. “And I promise you, she'd slap me inside and out if I do anything that is remotely... unprogressive.”

“Your mother...” Lan Fan began. “She lets you interfere with her husband's business?”

“Oh, my father is not her husband. Not anymore. And of course she lets me. Some of the ideas had been hers actually, though she'd never lift a finger herself.”

Lan Fan frowned at this, surely thinking that his familial unit was quite strange. Sometimes he thought so too. She finally went in, and he led her to the walk-in closet sitting at the opposite side of the room.

“Anyway, so what happened was that on the night they were going to trade The Collateral with the five million sens, I installed someone to intercept the notebook.”

“Why couldn't you have stolen the notebook before they were to meet with your father?” she asked, as Ling moved a shelf out of the way, revealing another passage from inside the closet.

“It's not easy to lure out the Guild. Less so to lure them out _and_ have the notebook out in the open. I figured I'd let my father do that job for me, but it turned out to be the fatal mistake. See, after the notebook was stolen, my father didn't see any point in doing business with them anymore. The Collateral was gone. The Guild had dispersed to try and catch Shai. The entire deal was in a state of disarray, and my father thought his business and reputation was on the line.”

“So he had them killed?”

Ling paused. “Yes, at least, that's the most logical thing I can come up with to explain the events. Half the guild died when the bomb went off. And remember those men who were chasing us?”

Lan Fan nodded grimly.

“They were the other half of the Guild. But after I gave you to Hawkeye, I received news that they too were dead.”

“And your father?”

“He wasn't even mentioned in the book,” Ling admitted angrily. It had been his blind spot. He'd assumed that the Guild would have written their agreement with his father down before the trade occurred.

“Now you want to come up with a new plan to collapse your father's business?”

“That's exactly right.”

They had now stopped at the end of the short, narrow hallway. The floor was still carpeted here, and there were pretty lamps lining the walls. Ling had never thought it felt like a secret passageway or anything. If his room hadn't been built directly to block it, it could have been just a small hallway. But that was the good thing about being inconspicuous.

“But wait!” she exclaimed. “If he's your father, what's stopping him from showing up here tonight or whenever, and finding out about this? As a matter of fact, I'm surprised he hasn't found out about what you've been up to all this time!”

“Hah! No need for surprise,” Ling said. “He barely acknowledges my existence. The man had spawned twenty other kids, and counting. Classic case of shoot-and-scoot. Trust me, I'm more likely to come across a half-sibling than to come across my own father.”

“So... this,” Lan Fan gestured around them in a wide, vague wave. “This isn't your father's? The property I mean?”

“No,” Ling said. “It's Mom's. Just because she isn't as well known as Dad doesn't mean she doesn't do well enough on her own.”

“Interesting,” she mumbled.

“It is. And wait till you meet Mom. I've a feeling she'll like you. She likes girls in general. Her biggest regret with my father was not the headache and the financial disaster, but that she never got a daughter out of her only marriage.” Ling laughed when Lan Fan made an uncomfortable face.

“Anyway, what's going to happen now?”

“Well this is where you come in.” Ling typed the passcode on the door at the end of the hallway. He turned the knob, and showed her in. “Say hello to Operation Greed 2.0.”

-o-

Riza eyed the the graying clouds through the car's windshield. Beside her, the colonel shifted in his seat, fiddling with his gloves. He put them on, then took them off. He wiggled his hand and then put the glove back on.

He was fidgeting. She rarely saw him fidget. But she guessed that he had a right to be fidgeting this time around. It had been three hours since Falman disappeared into the building looming over their car, and there was no sign of when he would come out. Riza found herself tracing the outlines of her gun. Here's to hoping that Falman _would_ come out.

Mustang cleared his throat. “You know, if we're supposed to be here, as an _ordinary_ man and woman sharing a car in a parking lot, don't you think we ought to be a bit more convincing?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

He gave her a meaningful glance. “Getting rid of that 'sir,' would be one thing.”

Riza cleared her throat. The colonel could be so... what's the word she was looking for? Untimely?

“But we are here on business, sir,” she explained, and he merely raised one eyebrow to question whether they were, indeed, here on business. She shrugged, eyes drifting to the clear pouch on the dashboard where her and Mustang's military badges were stored. It really was quite difficult to say on what grounds they were here, outside of XYZ Ltd.'s Relio site. Just outside of Central City, Relio's smaller sized suburb made this XYZ location perfect for families in a bit of money trouble. Chu had always known the perfect places to build his offices. It was quite a miracle that they managed to catch the businessman during his visit to Relio. He traveled quite often, preferring to manage as many of his deals as he could.

“Falman told us to be inconspicuous,” Mustang suggested. “And _this_ – you, me, sitting here doing nothing for three hours in a parking lot – is not inconspicuous.”

“What would you rather we do?”

The colonel shrugged, stretched his arms out as he yawned, and Riza could only roll her eyes as his left arm draped over her shoulders.

In a way, she supposed, this _could_ be a personal trip. They hadn't received orders themselves that they turn to Henry Chu to fund their investigation of the Amestris black markets. However, this assignment had been given almost next to no funding, with the government's budget prioritized elsewhere. The black markets were getting worse, but the people were still getting by, and it's been only five years after the Sanitary Movement; there were more important things to patch up.

There was another reason why they had chosen XYZ Ltd. Riza sighed, her mind drifting back to their tentative agreement with the young Ling Yao.

“Someone's coming!” Mustang whispered sharply, and Riza turned to him, burying her head in his shoulder, and she felt his arms wrap around her back. A loud sound startled her, and she turned to see Falman open the door to the backseat of the car, settling himself in.

“What's all this?” he asked, indicating the two of them close together. In his hand was a thick brown folder with the logo of XYZ Ltd. on the cover.

She cleared her throat and moved away from the colonel. “How was it?”

“I think we should scoot first,” Falman replied, tucking himself in with the seatbelt. “Then we can talk.”

Mustang drove them back to the outskirts of Central City, where they stopped in front of a glade just before entering the main highway. He retrieved the document from Falman, and flipped open the cover. Riza watched his face fall into confusion.

“25 acres of land in Youswell?” He looked up, staring at her in bafflement. “What would Chu want with 25 acres of land in Youswell? What the _hell_ even is in Youswell?”

“He said he wants to build an office there,” Falman said, getting up from his seat to redirect Mustang's attention to the fine print.

“An office? In a mining town?” Riza returned the colonel's confused look. What would the man gain by setting up in Youswell? He never did anything without a specific purpose in mind. Admittedly, his sites in the East Area weren't abundant, only three as far as Riza knew. However, she couldn't understand why exactly he wanted one amidst the miners.

“Well, Youswell has been affected quite rapidly by urban sprawl. There have been other businesses built around the area in the last few years,” Falman coined. “Could it be that he wants to surround himself more with them?”

Mustang flipped over the pages. “It could... though I don't understand the specific choice. There are other business hotspots than Youswell. But you have to admit, this collateral is a little tamer than I expected.”

Riza agreed. At least for now, reservation of some land for Chu was an easy enough exchange for a loan of 3.5 million sens. She knew that they were all afraid he'd ask for something crazy, like an arm and a leg. Still, Chu had a way of sneaking up on someone. The last time they'd dealt with him, he had seemed quite fair and professional in his treatment of them.

And yet, they were still learning the repercussions of that.

“Alright,” Mustang stuffed the documents back in the folder and handed them to Falman. “We'll talk to Grumman about it. I don't see him refusing this deal unless there's definitely some angle we're not seeing. Then call Havoc, and see if he's up to meeting the brats.”

-o-

Lan Fan was ushered into a room not unlike the one in which she and Ling fought. There were no windows, naturally, since it would defeat the entire point of a secret chamber; however, the room was well lit with white lamps settled in the corners, bordering a wide, mahogany table looking ready to faint with all the clutter it was upholding. She almost asked if indeed it was a bodyguard he needed and not an assistant with a penchant for cleaning, but she bit back the comment. She'd never been one to joke with an employer, and it was only because this one was young and lively that she found herself mirroring his attitude. Or at least, _attempting_ to. She read about that once, a long time ago. It was why smiles could be so contagious.

Ling motioned for her to take a seat, though where, she couldn't figure out. There were only three seats in the room: the tall, leather one behind the desk, and two identical, squat square chairs in front. The latter were also filled with notebooks and folders and laminated rolls. When she remained standing, he hooked his arm in hers and led her to the leather seat. She squirmed.

“Nah, this is the only good view,” he explained as he planted her on the chair. He leaned forward from behind her, taking a ratty looking notebook on the desk, and flipping it at a seemingly random page. On the spread, several words were scrawled in big block letters.

“The last place a man looks is under his own two feet,” Lan Fan read. Now what in the world was that supposed to mean?

“A piece of advice from Mom,” Ling explained. She looked at him through her peripherals, because if she'd so much as turn her head, she'd be kissing his cheek. She shifted uncomfortably, but his left hand was gripping the left armrest, and he was leaning out over her right shoulder. “The problem with the first Greed Operation was that we were an obvious external element.”

Aha. Lan Fan began to understand. “You're planning to attack them from the inside out?”

“Something of that sort.” He cleared a space at the edge of the desk and sat on it. “It's too dangerous to plant a spy right inside their company, so we're not going to be attacking from dead center. But if we were to engage them as a client...”

“You mean... something like faking business with your father? Borrow money as a fake client?” Lan Fan asked.

“That's exactly what I'm thinking,” Ling replied.

“Hold on,” she said. “ _You_ are not planning to go as the client, right? I mean, I know you and your father aren't on good terms, but if your name is linked enough to his that a web search would quickly associate you two as son and father, then he'd still recognize you if you came to him.”

“You're right, which is why I'm not going to be the client.”

“Then who would be?”

“There'd be two. And one of them is going to be the government,” he said quietly, smirking as he let that sink in. Lan Fan blinked. He'd just told her that the government had often benefited from XYZ Ltd. many times. How would they get it to go against one of their biggest sources of monetary assets?

She closed the notebook shut and fiddled with the corners. She wondered how safe it was to question her employer's plans, but he did tell her that part of her job was to help him work out the knots, and she did have financial and corporal interests staked in the gamble. “You're planning to involve the government? I don't know, Ling. After the whole uprising years ago, I don't think it's the best time to play with our not-so-friendly higher ups, even if President Grumman seems to be patching things up nicely.” Gee, _she_ could get deported back to Xing, and what would happen to her grandfather then?

“Careful Lan Fan, or syour enthusiasm would inflate my ego,” Ling said. He snatched another coiled notebook from the mess, and flipped through it. He then narrowed his eyes at her, and asked, “Did you know that Auto-Mail has been compromised?”

Dread pooled in Lan Fan's stomach. “Compromised?” she grabbed the notebook from Ling, too worried to think about how that action might come across to her employer, but Ling just leaned back on the desk again. On the page, there were only incomprehensible notes, dates, and names of people she didn't know. “What do you mean by 'compromised'?”

“Well, the word is that the State Military is sending a team to start the investigation of the black markets.”

Lan Fan swallowed, wondering what it meant for her. This stunt with Ling might ensure her welfare for the next two months (and she meant that quite loosely, since whatever they were going to do didn't sound as... self-preserving as she would like, even for a service such as she delivered), but after that how would she get a job? She had no degree, and her high school diploma was a useless square pulp that hundreds of others could pawn. Even if she worked 24/7, any decent employment registered in the Social Bureau for her skill level would not give her enough money to support herself and her grandfather's medical needs.

But perhaps... perhaps after all of this, if things went _right_ , her grandfather wouldn't _have_ medical needs. First, she had to make sure of something.

“Are we going to kill your father?” she asked.

“What? Whoa, slow down there!” Ling said, arms up as if pacifying a rabid dog. “I never said _kill_!”

“Good,” she nodded. “I'm not an assassin. I don't take jobs that require me to be a hitman.”

“You don't have to kill if you don't want to. And I'm confident enough in your skills to know that you can avoid it if you want,” Ling assured her. Then his eyes grew curious. “Bad experience?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, but my past jobs are under non-disclosure agreements. I can't tell you anything. You'll have to put all your trust and confidence on my muscles and training instead. Surely you understand.” If Ling knew anything about Auto-Mail, and it seemed he did if he knew it was 'compromised', he'd know that the jobs one could find there weren't exactly spotless.

It wasn't that they were illegal, not in the moral connotation of the word. At least not all of them. They were just against the law because they weren't registered properly in the Social Bureau. Some had good reasons for it – why pay twice more for a licensed high-rise roof patcher when one could hire Paninya – and others had more self-interested reasons. Very few of the jobs Lan Fan had taken could have actually been considered 'bad', but when the economy was as controlled as it was, black markets and underground networks could hardly be avoided. It was slightly getting better under Grumman with the alleviation of certain barriers to obtaining licenses and learning skill sets, but with the populace's practiced distrust against the government, many would try to stick with their secret connections.

Lan Fan gripped the cuff of her left sleeve, a nervous habit she had developed ever since she'd been unable to wring her hands together. Perhaps she could join another network, but if Auto-Mail was under investigation, soon the others would also be.

“Hey, I can hear your mind gears working from way over here,” Ling said. When she looked back at him, he handed her a box of cookies. “Food! Works wonders, I tell you.”

She shook her head, and wondered how this boy got anything done when he was always distracted with something.

“What does Auto-Mail have to do with your father? And the government?”

“Well, the government is always involved in _everything_ so that part's easy. Anyway, this is the clearest way I can put my tentative plan into words: the government's interest in Auto-Mail and the black market is not that urgent, at least not yet, so the military team being deployed is small and underfunded.”

He handed her a brown folder storing paper-clipped photocopies of the state mandate.

“Where did you get this?” Lan Fan whispered.

“A man I'd introduce to you later.” Then he continued. “Guess where they're going to get the money? Papa Chu, that is! But, and here's the crucial part, we have connections with Auto-Mail too. So we set up another deception, this time with Auto-Mail members as clients who need funds to throw the military dogs off their trail. Then somehow, and this is the part that still needs ironing out, we'll have to reveal that XYZ willingly conspired against a government venture.”

Lan Fan nodded. The plans had bones. It wasn't as solid as she'd like, but the essence of betrayal was there. All it would take to make the business collapse was to withdraw its government support, since by itself, 7-11 had dealt more than its fair share of injuries that it would take a short time for it to just implode. Plus, if it would be revealed publicly, the government would be _forced_ to withdraw its support, rather than lose face.

“There's one thing I'm hesitant about,” Lan Fan admitted.

“Just one? Whew!” Ling wiped an imaginary sweat from his brow. “What is it?”

“I don't feel comfortable throwing Auto-Mail as bait to the military dogs. What if we just get caught?”

Ling grinned. “Well the best part of this plan is that the team investigating the black markets is actually involved with us!”

He ended with a ta-da gesture, and almost as a punchline, something slammed below on the first floor, followed by a shriek. “Ling!” It was a testament to how loud it was when they could hear it in a room tucked away behind a larger room, a closet, and an entire hallway.

The boy in front of her jumped from the desk and tucked his bangs away from his eyes. “That'd be Mom. Time for introductions, I guess.”

Lan Fan didn't know whether to shake her head to keep her mind from reeling, or to hold it still. Only if she'd had two hands. She found herself massaging her right temple, pondering if it was a bit too late to retract her agreement to the deal.

A million sens. This was a little crazy, even for a million sens.

She and Ling traversed the narrow hallway again, back to his closet, and finally out into his room. Lan Fan was only emerging from the jungle of suit sleeves and sweater hoods, when the door to his room opened, and a woman came in, looking around, a frown evident on her face.

“So messy, and..” she trailed off as she spotted them. Dressed in an off-white office suit, beige nylons, and white high heels, with her hair strictly pulled back in a severe ponytail, she seemed an ethereal being of cleanliness, intent on throwing out the trash. Lan Fan tensed when the woman's gaze, shadowed only by a pair of tinted visors, fixed upon her. Slowly, she pulled the shades down, and Lan Fan uncomfortably twisted her left cuff as she endured a thorough up-and-down scrutiny.

“Ma, this is my new friend!” Ling exclaimed, completely unperturbed by the sudden drop of temperature in the room. Or maybe that was only in Lan Fan's imagination.

“Oh!” the severity on the woman's face completely evaporated, replaced instead by an excited gleam in the eyes, the twin of which Lan Fan found permanent in Ling's own. Her mouth stretched into a toothy grin, and Lan Fan now found it quite unnerving how similar she and Ling looked. “A friend! And here I thought it was another half-sister.”

“Another?” Lan Fan muttered under her breath. How many girls had shown up in this house claiming to be a sister?

“And here I was, murdering your father eight different ways in my head!” She took in Lan Fan again with an appraising gaze. “Considering that this girl would have been born while your father and I were still married... but that's not the case at all, is it?” She patted Lan Fan's cheeks with soft, moisturized hands, her nails digging slightly into her cheeks. “Oh, you're cute! You're staying for dinner, right?” She settled her hands on Lan Fan's shoulders, and only then she noticed the missing arm.

“Oh.” Then she looked back at Lan Fan, clearly examining her face, as if she hadn't taken a close enough look earlier. “Wait, are you sewer-girl?”

“You know about that?” Lan Fan asked, a little rattled by the attention she's being given. What was up with this family and all their touching? Didn't they have the slightest notion of personal space?

“Ling told me,” the woman nodded. And almost as if just remembering her son's presence, she turned to him, outraged. “I told you to leave the poor girl alone! You told me you stopped searching for her.”

That was a surprise. Why would he be looking for her?

“I did! She conveniently showed up on our doorstep!”

The woman placed an arm around Lan Fan's shoulders, guiding her out of Ling's room, but not before sending a menacing glare at her son. “Clean your room.” Then she turned back to Lan Fan, her voice gentle and saccharine. “You know, you don't have to be involved again if you don't want to. My son is just a bit too persistent. Looks like you've had your fill of Yao adventures.” Lan Fan could tell she was studiously ignoring her left arm – or lack thereof.

“It's okay,” Lan Fan said, going down the steps, wondering how she could escape this woman's hold. “He and I already made a deal. And it's only going to be for a couple of months.”

“And what role are you going to be fulfilling this time around? I sincerely hope he didn't convince you to sign up as a sewage partner.”

Lan Fan chuckled. “No, ma'am. A bodyguard.”

The woman's eyebrows rose. “How much is he paying you?”

“Ma!” Ling called from behind them, descending the stairs in a rush. “You're not suborning my employee, are you?”

His mother ignored him and turned back to Lan Fan with a wicked wink and a conspiratorial one. “Whatever it is, I'll double it if you could babysit him on the side. He says he's too old for the governess, but he can't even clean his room. Sorry about that, by the way. We're kind of in between maids. I'm sure there's a bionic dust bunny in his room somewhere, and...”

“Ma, leave Lan Fan alone, will you? Look at her, you're overwhelming her!”

“I am not!” she stated a matter-of-factly, and began to fiddle with Lan Fan's bun. “Her hair is just not done properly. Now sweetie, turn around and I'll give you a perfect ponytail.” Lan Fan put up her only hand to her head, shielding the shabby bun from prying fingers, and took several steps back to distance herself from the overbearing attention the two were showing. Kicks and punches she was used to, but this?

“Ah, it's alright Ms. Yao.” Lan Fan patted the loose bun on her head, made even looser during her fight with Ling. Over the last two years, she'd managed to learn how to make a bun with only one hand, involving several pins, rather than an elastic.

“How's life at Younge?” Ling's mother asked, after an extended awkward silence that Lan Fan almost felt guilty about.

“Younge?” Lan Fan asked. “It's alright, I guess. But how did you know...” Even Ling didn't know where she lived yet. They only became acquainted minutes ago.

“Oh,” Ms. Yao lifted a manicured finger, and pointed at the doorway to the house. “Tan brick dusts. There's that insanely ugly wall at Younge right? I don't even know why they call it a wall. I heard that pieces of it fall off every time some passerby sneezes.”

Lan Fan stared at the bits of sediment she had trailed in, torn between feeling embarrassed that she had tainted this lovely house ( _while they were in between maids, how dare she!)_ or feeling a little uneasy by how much the woman could discern just by that... little... thing. She shifted, finding her left cuff again, and began to wonder what else Ling's mother, or even Ling himself, had found out about her just from her appearance and her actions. When she looked up at them, they just smiled back at her. Identical twin smiles.

Sweat ran down her back. For the first time, she felt a little chilled by those upturned lips. Lan Fan tried to return it, but she thought she must have sent them a grimace instead. What kind of people did she come across?

“So,” Ling said, swinging his hands. “Would that be the Tong Hua restaurant or an AYCE?”

“AYCE,” his mother said. “Your bodyguard needs little more... body. You're alright with that, sweetheart?” The last part was leveled at her.

“Actually,” Lan Fan said after finding her voice. “I need to return to my grandfather. He also hasn't had a decent meal in a while–”

“He can come with us! We'll bring him along,” Ms. Yao interrupted.

“Ah, no he can't. He's quite ill, you see. He'll need different type of food.”

“Well, how about this?” Ling interrupted. “We'll go to the AYCE, and then pick up your grandpa afterward. We'll bring him here, and call for an assistant. How sick is he?”

Lan Fan shrugged. “Some days are better than others.” She didn't feel comfortable eating out, spending so much, and splurging on food when her grandfather could sometimes, at his worst, barely digest chicken soup. Tealicious had been the only indulgence she allowed herself. But how would she say no to these people? If she could, she would have walked out the door the moment she found out who her employer was.

So it was that she found herself tucked in the backseat of a rather expensive looking, though extremely pristine white car, waiting for the garage doors to open. She closed and opened her hand, unable to help the feeling of excitement from rising. It had been a crazy long time since she had gone to a buffet.

When they were well on the road, she felt Ling move beside her, close, an arm going around her shoulders.

“Hasn't anyone told you that seatbelts are these wonderful inventions that actually keep you safe in a car?” He pulled the band across her body, from behind her left shoulder to the right side of her waist, and she heard the distinct click as he tucked it into the latch. The satisfied grin he gave her let her know that he was completely aware he was the cause of the two red patches on her cheeks. For a moment she considered sticking her tongue out, but she had heard that it could be an actual cause of employment termination in some jobs, so she held back. She didn't sacrifice her personal space just to be fired over a seatbelt.

A loud crash stole her attention from Ling, and she felt her heart almost jump out of her throat when she found another car, uprooted with its wheels high in the air, rolling towards them. She struggled with the seat belt, intending to leap out of their car, and cursing all the while at Ling who had the audacity to plug her in when there was _a car about to smack into them._ Suddenly, their car twisted to the left in an acute turn to avoid the other, and the abrupt acceleration jostled Lan Fan in her seat. Her hair came fully undone, and she watched pins spin out from her head and settle on the floor. The scene out the window spun uncontrollably, the screech of the breaks ringing in her ear, her seat belt digging into her flesh as the force pushed against her like an invisible hand.

Finally, after a long moment, their car righted itself, several feet away from the other one. Lan Fan exhaled. Then she remembered Ling, and looked beside her. Was she on the job now? Did she have to protect him now? Was he okay?

But he returned her worried gaze with an amused smile.

“Ugh, what the hell is _wrong_ with you?” she found herself saying, even though she didn't make it a habit to snap at her clients. She almost punched him, but he nodded towards the window.

“Nothing's wrong. It's just Izumi,” he said, as if _that_ explained everything.

“What in the world is Izumi?” Lan Fan looked at where he was staring, and to her left, just outside her window, a woman stood, hair done up in braids, staring at them with eyes like a raging storm. _What the..._

In a flash, the woman's hand punched through the glass beside Ms. Yao's seat, shattering the windows, but Ling's mother didn't even flinch.

“Yuna, you still owe me for the pig!” the woman yelled.

Ling's mother just smiled. “I told you I'd pay it in installments!”

“It's a freaking _pig_! Who pays installments for meat?”

“I pay my hairdresser in installments! Why not a butcher?”

“And what do you expect me to do with Mason?”

Ms. Yao threw a bunch of cash out the broken window. “Don't frown so much, Izumi! You'll look old!” She started driving away, but a hand crashed against the wall of the car, stopping their progress.

“Who're you calling old?” Just then, the woman noticed Ling sitting at the back seat. He gave her an impertinent grin, and her eyes narrowed even further. Lan Fan managed to unbuckle her belt, finally, and she scooted closer to Ling, grabbing the door latch next to him just in case the woman decided to make a grab for the boy. Though if she really wanted to, it didn't look like a scrap of metal could stop her. She had thrown a _car_ , for goodness's sake.

“Hey, this is Lan Fan!” Ling called out, rolling down the windows. Lan Fan gritted her teeth and sent him a glare. Now that she thought about it, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if this Izumi got to him. It would serve him right.

“Don't attract her attention. Are you crazy?” she hissed at him.

But Izumi merely regarded her with a twitch of an eyebrow, and she returned her attention to him.

“Meeting the brats tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yeah, I got class with Ed.”

“Tell him not to come back if–” Just then, a blob of bloody goo fell from her mouth, staining the car's polished finish. Lan Fan recoiled back in horror, and continued to watch in numbed silence, as a man, big as a bear, led Izumi away from the road, patting her back gently. Ms. Yao continued to drive away from the suburban street, and rolled into the highway as if nothing had happened.

_I must be dreaming_ , she thought.

“Those were the Curtises,” Ling told her. Lan Fan stayed quiet. What was she supposed to do? Nod? Tell him, 'Oh it was nice to meet them!'?

Because it wasn't!

“Izumi Curtis and Ma have been in a... friendly competition for the title of the baddest female in Dublith since we moved here.”

“Friendly?” Lan Fan snapped back, then shook her head, and chose to ignore Ling the rest of the ride. It would be better for her health. If this was the type of person he made 'friends' with, then she could definitely understand why he needed a bodyguard 24/7.

-o-

Ling eyed the shabby building, wondering if it would crumble to the ground if he let out the belch he was holding back. The dinner at the buffet had been wonderful, as eating always was for him. His mother had taken them to the large, highly-praised restaurant a few miles from Dublith, specializing in Xingese cuisine, but one that also served Amestrian, and the occasional Cretan, dishes. Lan Fan had looked reluctant to go for more than one trip (though her first serving was piled as high as his and she devoured it with an unabashed appetite), but he'd convinced her to go with him for a second round. He had to pile her dishes himself with food he suggested she try, but even then, as soon as they got back to the table, she looked more ready to hoard the food away in a fridge than to eat them.

He understood why now. They drove to Younge immediately after dinner, with Lan Fan giving directions as to where her apartment was. Ling saw the wall his mother had talked about earlier, agreeing with her that it wasn't really much of a wall. But then again, things here seemed to fulfill only half of what they were meant to be. The building in front of which they parked didn't even look like a residential building. It looked like a quilt... made out of bricks, mortar and wooden boards. How Lan Fan and her grandfather could survive the winters in there, he didn't want to know. It didn't get nearly as cold as it surely did up in Briggs, but it could still be uncomfortable for them.

Lan Fan hopped out of the car, and made for the entrance. He followed her, thinking she might need assistance getting her sick grandfather down. When she didn't stop him, he strode up beside her. There weren't any elevators, though he was sure he'd counted at least five storeys, so they followed the hallway until they reached the end of the building, where they could access the higher floors through rickety staircases.

It wasn't like Ling was unaware that people could be this poor. As a matter of fact, he'd known people even poorer, even in Dublith itself, pestered with gangs as they were. But _knowing_ didn't prepare him for the oppressive feel of depravity. He was about to sigh, but cut himself off before he could fully inhale the pungent odour he could only describe as public-washroom-smell, but worse.

“Ling,” Lan Fan said, a few steps ahead of him. Her voice sounded different, deeper, softer in the claustrophobic stairwell. “May I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Your mother said that you searched for me. Why?”

“Well, we did spend a rather... memorable night together, don't you think?” He didn't miss the eye-roll she sent him. “What?” he asked, voice high in a teasing tone. “You don't feel the same way? I am hurt! All this time, I was just a one-night stand to you?”

“Seriously!”

Ling chuckled. “Okay, okay. But I told you already, back home.” Ling tried to form the words in his head in a way that would sound satisfying. He didn't think she'd appreciate thinking he pitied her. But it wasn't pity. It was guilt. Those were different things.

“I felt responsible for the explosion that took your arm, and not to mention, you disappeared from Hawkeye's radar. Do you know how difficult that is? Not to mention, scary. I was more than willing to pay your medical bills for you – I still am, by the way, just let me know – but we couldn't find you anywhere. If we did, I would have been less worried and not as... curious, I guess, to track you down.”

Lan Fan merely nodded, and Ling felt a little cheated. All that explanation for a nod.

“Well?” he urged her, as she opened the door to the fourth floor. “What happened? Where did you go?”

She gave him a defensive look. “Non-disclosure agreement.”

“What? You started working already?”

She opened her mouth, as if to correct something he said, but closed it again, and schooled her face into neutrality.

Okay. Interest definitely piqued.

But before he could pursue his next question, she stopped in front of a door, and jammed a key into a lock. She opened it up, and let him in, her face defiant as he took in her humble quarters. The place was only a little bigger than his own hidden room; to the side was a sad excuse of a passage leading to one bedroom and a bathroom. There was a sagging couch in one corner, piled with neatly folded blankets and a pillow. A small table stood beside it, swept free of dust, with only a small ledger to populate it. To his right was the kitchen, but there was no dining room to speak of.

“It's impressive,” he said, and she gave him a flat look. “No, really! The way you managed to keep things clean and neat. Honestly, if I were in your situation, I wouldn't fare any better than having a cardboard box. With dust bunnies.”

She gave a small smile, indicating that at least he tried. “Grandpa's in the room,” she said. “I'll start packing up my things. See if you can get him up.”

Ling nodded. He entered the room quietly, almost switching on the lights, but remembering quickly how rude that would be if someone was resting in bed. He saw a small, dark figure swathed in blankets, but he didn't hear heavy breathing. That was a good sign. Hopefully that meant today was one of his better days. He walked closer, reaching out to gently shake the old man, when a hand enclosed his wrist in a grip so tight, he would have at least sprained it if he made sudden movements.

“Who are you?” a rough, thickly-accented voice asked, and Ling found the elder man sitting up in bed, looking at him like a bed bug.

“Grandpa!” Lan Fan called, as she rushed into the room. She knelt in front of the bed, placing a calming hand on his shoulder. “This is Ling. He's my new employee. He'll be taking us to a more comfortable place.”

“I don't know how you can still trust your clients after–”

“Oh, but I know Ling!” Lan Fan assured him, and she turned to Ling, urging him to back her up. Ling began to nod earnestly.

“We met a couple of years ago, sir.” The old man grunted, and released his hand. Ling looked back at Lan Fan, mouthing 'I thought you said he was sick!' as he rubbed his reddened wrist. She only looked back at her grandfather, concerned, as he started coughing. She reached out for a handkerchief on the nearby table, and brought it to him. When the coughing fits ended, the handkerchief came away with bloodied spots.

Ling frowned, then helped Lan Fan bring the old man to his feet. Across her shoulder, a sling bag hung limply, and he wondered if that was all she was going to take with her.

“Here,” he offered. “I can take him down to Mom. If you need to pack more things, go ahead.”

She nodded. “I also need to bring a note to the superintendent, telling them we won't be here for the next two months.”

Ling nodded. “Tell them they can rent it out if they want. We'll find you two another place after our contract ends.” He bore the weight of her grandfather as she transferred his arm to Ling's shoulders. He wasn't heavy at all, but the trip down to the parked car was made a little difficult by the constant glares the old man was shooting his way. Though he was born in Amestris, Ling was aware of propriety differences between the two countries. His mother might have instilled in him the values and priorities of the Xingese, but compared to this old man, perhaps he wasn't traditional enough. He could practically taste the don't-touch-my-granddaughter threat in those eyes.

His mother rescued him from the uneasiness when she flashed the old man a reassuring smile as soon as they exited the building. Or perhaps Lan Fan's grandfather was just relieved to see that they had a chaperone? Regardless, his mother guided him to the backseat, taking up the spot where Lan Fan had been earlier. Ling took the passenger seat. Lan Fan came down only a moment later, two bags in tow, and the four of them made the quiet trip back to Dublith. Their ride home was quiet and uneventful, and Ling didn't know if he was grateful for it.


	3. Chapter 3

When they arrived at his house, his mother had him settle Lan Fan and her grandfather in two of the guest chambers on the second floor. Theirs were on the third, but it was directly accessible through the hallway adjacent the stairs.

“If you need anything,” Ling said, pointing to the doors visible just beyond the railing. “Mom and I are close by. You might need a bomb to wake Ma up, but she can take care of things. I mean...” He trailed off quietly, only realizing that a bomb joke may not be an appropriate one considering their past. Sometimes he wondered why he had to be cursed with verbal diarrhea.

She waved him off, nonchalant, as she closed the door to her grandfather's room. She began to head for her own, but stopped in the middle of the hallway to rummage through her bag.

“I almost forgot,” she said, and from it she took out a tightly-knitted, black tuque. “I don't know if you want it back, but I did find it more useful as a hat.”

Ling took it, realizing immediately what it was. Though the lower part that should have covered the face was cut out, there were still the two obvious red lines that trisected what once had been his mask.

“You kept it?”

She shrugged, but let a small smile slip through. “It was free. It's better than having to buy one.”

He chuckled, and stretched it down over her head. “Keep it. I kinda grew out of its style.” He gave her a pat on the head, which she swatted away. It only made him laugh harder. “Good night, Lan Fan,” he said, before taking the stairs two steps at a time.

“Oh, Ling?” He turned back to see Lan Fan playing with her left sleeve. Nervous habit, it seemed. He wondered if she used to wring her hands together when she still had two.

“Look, this might be a little tough for Grandpa,” she began. “He's got more than his fair share of... issues with your father, and even if we're working towards bringing him down, it's still hard for Grandpa to swallow. It's just...”

“I understand,” Ling said. And he really did. He had dealt with five cases of vandalism and three of slander before he realized that people seemed to think that getting to him would mean getting to his father. There had also been two 'accidents' perpetrated by several siblings, but those hadn't been an indirect message for their dad. As a legitimate child (not all of his siblings were), he had the opportunity to inherit XYZ Ltd. should something happen to their father. He wasn't the first in line, of course, but for some reason, 'the lesser the better' seemed to be a mantra many of his siblings went with.

“He's not going to be very fond of you,” she added. “That's all I'm saying.”

“How much does he know?”

“Most of everything. I can't exactly keep a lot of things from my grandfather. Even when I try, he finds out eventually.”

Ling chuckled. “Parents and guardians, how dare they, right? Don't worry. Not a lot of people are fond of me anyway. I'm used to it.” He made a point of heaving an exaggerated sigh.

Lan Fan's smile broadened a bit.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he reminded her one final time, before going up to bed.

-o-

Lan Fan felt the unfamiliarity of the mattress and bed sheets before her eyes even opened. For a moment, she panicked, wondering if yet again she had found herself unwillingly hoisted to a bed not her own. But the events of the previous day came flashing back, and she sighed in quiet relief, urging other memories to flee from her mind.

The warm blankets and the silver hue of the moonlight streaming through the curtains made her feel cheery, but she wished she had brought her ratty old blanket with her. She'd left it on the assumption that blankets would be provided by her employer and that she needn't bring unnecessary things, but now she found herself wanting a touch of something more personal. Damn, she remembered to bring Ling's old mask, but she neglected her own blanket.

She sighed, pushing herself out of bed. It had never been easy for her to adjust to sleeping to a new bed. Her feet were surprised to be greeted by a warm spread of soft carpet, rather than the cold hard touch of a wooden floor. She went to the window, pulled aside the curtains and stared at the street bordering Ling's house. The wreckage from their encounter with Izumi earlier were now gone, and there remained nothing to prove that the madwoman had ever attacked them.

What strange people she met today. She woke up wondering how she would be able to afford another month's worth of roof over her head, food, and not to mention the Red Stone. And now food and shelter were basically free. She knew that despite how she might complain about these people, she was willing to deal with worse to try and save her neck as well as her grandfather's.

She closed the curtains and padded out to the hallway, heading for her grandfather's room. She saw him slumbering peacefully, and relaxed a little. He didn't take to moving homes very well. It took a while for him to adjust to their most recent apartment. This place was far more opulent than any they had ever owned, so perhaps the high quality bed and sheets were able to pacify his symptoms well.

“I'm not sleeping,” his gruff voice crossed the room to where she was standing idly by the doorway. She snickered. She should have known.

Lan Fan entered the room, closing the door behind her, and sat at the foot of the bed. For a while she was silent. She knew in her head the kinds of things her grandfather would be thinking, the kind of questions he'd want to ask her about her decision to take _this_ job. But he was never one to speak so carelessly, not one to waste words on things he couldn't change. Right now, the most important thing to him was what she was going to do.

“I'm hoping,” she began, looking over to Fu who stared back at her with reddish, glassy eyes. “To find more about the stones.” Where were they from? How were they created? Was there any other way to get them? Because if Lan Fan was to be honest with herself, the last few months she had half expected to see an empty mailbox, her monthly deposit taken, but no Red Stone in return. Life was fickle, and she didn't know how she could blame anyone else but herself. She had been too greedy once.

“That boy doesn't look like he knows what he's doing. His eyes are too shifty, and I don't trust him,” Fu muttered. “I think he just wants to sleep with you.”

Lan Fan gasped, turning to him with shocked eyes. “Grandpa!”

“What? Don't think me a prude, Lan Fan, not at my age. I fathered six children, may I remind you. One of them was your father.”

Lan Fan chuckled, not knowing else how to react to this strange redirection of their conversation. “Well, at least all of them had the same mother,” she said.

Fu gave her a small, sly smile. “I was too poor to afford anything more than monogamy.”

“Grandpa!” she covered her face with her hands. But she knew as much as anyone else who had known her fraternal grandmother how much Fu had loved her and their kids. He had never been an affectionate man, crimping hugs and kisses like he crimped his pennies, but his love was concrete. She wondered often if any of her aunts and uncles were alive. They had lost all connection to them when they fled to Amestris following the emancipation of Tong Hua. Her parents had died then. She doubted she'll ever see any of her relatives. Movement was hard enough, especially for one who didn't own the right papers.

Lan Fan shook her head. She was getting ahead of herself. One problem at a time.

“Maybe it wouldn't be so hard,” Lan Fan said, though she sounded naïve even to her own ears. “Bringing down Henry Chu. Ling and his mother have a lot of money. Isn't that all that anyone needs?”

“The last Xingese emperor was drowning in wealth, and he still ended up with his throat slit,” Fu replied.

Lan Fan sighed. Chu was a cunning little bastard, smarter than anyone she had ever dealt with before. She knew personally the brunt of his indifference. If she failed with this, she wouldn't have to worry about the Red Stone; she'd most likely lack the living breath to worry about anything. Working to undermine him would be like walking on eggshells, with only a yawning abyss to catch her if she fell.

But what would the alternative be? Throwing herself a pity party every Thursday, counting her misfortune the same way Chu must be counting his money. She didn't want to be helpless even in her helplessness. These past two years she and her grandfather had dangled on threads like puppets. If she was more willing to stay a puppet than to cut the strings in fear of what would happen, then she had already given up.

Steeling herself, she bid her grandfather goodnight, and returned to her room.

-o-

Winry Rockbell woke up to find a golden head invading her desk drawers. Groggily, she stretched out a leg to kick Ed on the hip.

“Ay!” he cried out, turning around to glare daggers at her. She stuck out her tongue.

“What's this?” she asked. “Going through other people's things is kind of rude, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered under his breath, one hand still rubbing the sore spot on his hip through his pyjama bottoms. “Just looking for this!” He raised his other hand to show he was clutching the University Map.

Ah, that's right. College. Winry let her head fall back down to her pillow. She had arranged her schedule so that she had no classes on Mondays, but Ed would be going to his today. The campus was about two hours drive from Rush Valley, and the clock on Winry's bedside table already pointed at 8:30.

“You're already late for your first class, you know.”

“I know, and it doesn't matter,” Ed said as he folded the map and tucked it in his pocket. “It's just a tutorial, and I already know the material anyway. Al and I have been doing differential calculus since we were babies.” He tossed his hair with a harrumph, and though Winry was tempted to roll her eyes, she let him have his moment. They didn't start when they were babies, but they _have_ been doing advanced math for some time now.

She slipped out of bed, trying to comb her hair into place with her fingers. “You didn't even go back to Izumi's last night,” she reprimanded him. He was supposed to come to Rush Valley for a short visit over the weekends, but stayed a little longer. He delivered a personal request from Ling Yao himself late on Saturday, and Winry had scrambled to arrange the boy with whom she considered an underappreciated superstar in the Auto-Mail networks.

“Meh, what would I do there anyway? She'll make me clean the house.”

“She gets worried too, you know that.” They made their way to the kitchen, and she pulled out some eggs from the fridge.

“I'll tell her about the servers,” Ed said noncommittally. “That's the third time they failed this month. I don't think Dominic is taking good care of them. Last night, about a third of those in our network couldn't access us.”

“Don't blame Dominic,” Winry said. “He's doing the best he can. We all are. Those servers are just ratty old things.”

“Then let's buy new ones.”

Winry gave him a flat look, lifting her left hand in the gesture of asking for money.

“Ask Ling!” Ed said, taking a bite out of his hastily buttered toast. “The kid's got millions.”

“You know I can't keep asking Ling for money.”

“Why not? You need them, he has it, _and_ he's one of our clients.” Ed shrugged. “It'll do him good to give to the needy.”

Winry sighed. There might have been a time when she would be terribly insulted by that, but that time would have been at least a year ago, when the Resit Cavern was still alive. They had been their biggest financial sponsor, and now... well. She could no longer deny that it was getting harder and harder to maintain the network, not with so many people each month registering. Their work grew exponentially to the number of users they had, and Winry's job as the 'matchmaker' – as Ed liked to tease her – became more difficult with each new request.

“Speaking of Ling...”

Winry turned to face Ed who had now finished his slice of bread. He carelessly dumped his dish on the sink, earning a reproachful frown from her – Garfiel hated it when the kitchen was dirty, and she already was paying discounted price renting out a room at his house.

“Are you sure about the whole 'hitting two birds with one stone' thing?” Ed continued. Winry had been informed of Ling's suggestion to turn the government inspection of the black markets as an opportunity to resurrect Operation Greed. Her role in the prior operation had been minimal, merely as an information relay. This time, the operation was much bigger, much riskier, but had much more potential for success.

The first time Ling proposed it, she and Ed had immediately refused. Auto-Mail was a hub to some ten thousand people across the nation, and even here in her dominion in South Area, Winry was responsible for almost a thousand. And counting. Risking them would be downright impossible. And yet...

“Yes, I'm sure.” She nodded resolutely. At least Mustang had agreed to work together with them to keep them as safe as possible. They would unlikely have that kind of opportunity again. Auto-Mail was on the edge of falling apart. Either, they would eventually be discovered then dissolved by the government itself, with criminal records haunting their names to boot, or they would just disintegrate after Henry Chu had eaten out all his bite-sized competitors, which Auto-Mail relied on for support. Resit Cavern was hardly bite-sized, and look what Chu had done to them.

“Alright,” Ed moved out of the kitchen, slinging his bag across his back. “I'll work the knots out with Ling and call you if we need anything.” She unlocked the door for him, and he stepped out of the small house. Before he walked away, he spun back, and a thick awkwardness oozed between them, punctuated by Edward moving a fringe of her hair behind her ear. He reddened and sprinted down the steps to the streets, yelling “see you tomorrow” like someone had spat in his soup.

Winry rolled her eyes, and shut the door. What a dork. Honestly. Why she even bothered... bah.

She prepared herself a small breakfast of oven-heated waffles and some scrambled eggs, and a cup of warm honeyed tea. She carried her food to her room to start her work. There were some things she wanted to finish before going to campus for the next four days.

There were piles and piles of sheets littering her table; most of them were her own notes, but some were newspaper and magazine cutouts, flyers from the neighbourhood centre, and bills for and from clients. Though Auto-Mail started out as a voluntary service, the process became so complex that they now charged a 5% cut from all successful matches they facilitate. At the center of the mess was her desktop. She fired it open, and connected herself to the Auto-Mail VPN. Dominic provided her an administrator access to all the databases hosted on his servers. She also had access to other databases, but she mostly used the ones with information in South and East Areas of Amestris.

Opening the program that logged new and pending requests, Winry scrolled through the list ( _432 New Tickets! 185 Drafted Responses!)_ If she were any other girl, Winry might have considered herself flattered by her popularity that she should wake up with so many messages in the morning. But now, she just sighed, took a sip of her tea, and began scanning through them.

… _need a cheap ride to go to North City for law exam..._ Hmm, sounded like a job for Mr. Eves. The man sold discounted train passes under the table. Winry moved the ticket to the “Require Contact” bucket, and added a small comment that Mr. Eves must be contacted. There were other automailers who would take care of the rest of the process.

… _high pay guaranteed for quiet disappearance of colleague –_ scrap that. Winry clicked on the delete button at the corner of the ticket. Auto-Mail strived to provide a decent source of income, no matter how small, for many people, which meant that they also constricted their service requests to decent ones, to avoid hypocrisy. Hitman hires were not too uncommon in the black markets, but Winry would rather they go to some other underground network.

Next. _Desperately looking for a doctor to treat my cousin, who traveled here from the Cretan pass_. Winry opened DataHunter, a database management software tool, and queried Tim Marcoh on the parser. If this person's cousin had traveled through the Cretan pass, then they were surely an illegal immigrant. Amestris had closed that pass years ago when the Cretan plague broke out, and Bradley – then president of Amestris – asserted a quarantine on all Cretan cities on the Amestris border. There were several doctors in the Auto-Mail network, but Winry new Marcoh best.

“Winry, yoo-hoo, where is Eddie-boy?” a knock came from her door, and she turned to see Garfiel's ever smiling face peer through the doorway.

“He went back to school now,” Winry answered.

“Oh, that's too bad. He's such a fine visitor.”

“Eh... fine wouldn't be the word I use for him,” Winry said, as she clicked on several tickets in a row, and dropped it onto Garfiel's slot. Now that he's awake, she could escalate some of the more urgent-looking tickets to him. He's been doing this a lot longer than she had. “More like... exasperating.”

“Alright, whatever you say! Though Exasperating Boyfriend does look very good on you,” he exited her room with a wink, and traipsed down the hallway to his own workstation.

Winry shook her head to rid herself of the blush she felt coming on. Back on her computer, she waited as DataHunter retrieved all of Tim Marcoh's Auto-Mail appointments for the next few weeks. It wouldn't finish for at least five minutes. They had so much data now, that even though they had invested in larger bandwidths, there was still a lot of bottleneck on the hard drives. And their clients often complained why they took so long. Honestly, it was saying something about how old their equipments were that she could make faster matches through word-of-mouth than through machine.

She leaned back, and began to eat her breakfast. Poor person, whoever it was coming from Creta. Nobody had really discovered a cure for the virus that circulated there. It was now better contained, yes, but those who succumbed under the outbreaks had little chance of surviving.

Winry turned her attention back to DataHunter. The loading bar still wasn't even a tenth through! Or wait... did DataHunter just freeze? She tried canceling, but the button didn't register her click. Minimize? Nope. She pressed the hotkeys on her keyboard, and the Process Manager came up, indicating that DataHunter was taking up 10GB of her RAM. With an irritated huff, Winry tried to kill the process, but instead of terminating DataHunter, her entire computer decided to shut itself down.

“Argh!” She pounded on her desk, hands clenched tightly or else she'd be pulling her hair out of their roots.

She snatched up the phone on the table to her right, and dialed Dominic's number. He didn't even let her get in one word.

“Yes, I know, the server's slow, DataHunter ate up too much memory, and your computer crashed. Tell me, young lady, what else is new?” The fact that Dominic was usually gruff did not excuse Winry's growing annoyance.

“So what are we going to do?” she asked, exasperated. Why did she have to surround herself with such surly people all the time?

“I don't know what _you_ are going to do, but as for me, I am going to continue to mimic a load balancer, so if you have any other questions, talk to my son.”

She heard the clicks that transferred the call, and a moment later she heard Ridel's much more amiable voice on the other side of the line.

“Hey Winry, sorry about that!” he chuckled softly. “I promise I'm working on the new version of DataHunter. It should be able to handle queries much more efficiently.”

“Thanks,” Winry said. “The past month hasn't been very easy on all of us.”

“Yeah, and looks like the upcoming months aren't going to be either,” Ridel trailed off in an uncomfortable silence.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you haven't heard? XYZ Ltd. just bought out Weom and Co.”

Weom and Co. Winry groaned. The small family-owned company's donations were the only thing that paid for the LeCoulte's software updates and maintenance. The software the powered all of Auto-Mail.

_Damn. Is Henry Chu cornering Auto-Mail –_

Winry stopped herself from completing that thought. She hastily said goodbye to Ridel, before sitting down in front of her desk again with a loud sigh.

She found herself staring at a picture of her parents. Late parents. As a child, she remembered believing they were going to save the world. Nobody really thought of doctors as a dynamic duo, but she certainly did. Her parents had worked on an ambitious project – a cure-all antidote, composed of advanced engineered cells that could _learn_ the nature of a disease and adapt themselves to fight it.

She didn't really know what happened to it. Her parents died almost six years ago. Last she heard from Ms. Hawkeye, the Rockbells had managed to finish exactly one prototype of the antidote, which the government kept for safekeeping.

Lousy job they did there. Hawkeye also told her that after Bradley was overthrown, the government lost the Red Stone.

-o-

Ling woke to the smell of burnt dumplings. His nose, as usual, was awake before the rest of him, and when he opened his eyes to find drops of rain violently pelting his window, he wondered why the smell of rain didn't wake him first. The sound of his stomach grumbling answered that question for him. Ah, well... there went some decent pork and shrimp. It was almost disappointing. His mother must have wanted to impress the guests with her cooking skills. It wasn't like she couldn't cook; Ling had known his Mom to boil egg and water, and surely those counted for something. He could only boil water, after all.

Guess they better start looking for another maid soon.

After washing up, he trotted downstairs to find no dumplings. Burnt though they were, he was never one to waste food. There was, however, Lan Fan sitting by the dining table, wiping her mouth with her hand, an empty bowl in front of her. His mother was standing behind her, mouth pursed in concentration as her fingers wound Lan Fan's hair in a braid.

“Good morning, sweetheart!” His mother chirped, eyes never wavering from the locks she was interweaving.

“Where's breakfast?” Ling asked, eyes forlornly tracing the outline of the bowl.

“Oh,” Lan Fan said, following his gaze. “They were burnt... I thought you might not have wanted to eat them. Sorry! I can make you something, if you want.” She started to rise from her seat, but was harshly pulled back down by his mother's grip on her hair.

“Don't worry about that,” Ling said, waving her concern away. He grabbed instead a small red bean pastry on the counter, where a pile of confectioneries lay ready for his insatiable stomach. His mother had long ago stopped issuing her no-sweets-for-breakfast rule, especially when Ling tended to eat eggs and follow it with chocolate milkshake, whose sweetness was never disputed. “I didn't hire you to make me food.”

“You hired me to ensure your well-being,” Lan Fan agreed, not quite reaching the nod she was hoping for. The hold on her head was tight. “I don't want you to faint.”

Faint. He glanced at his mother through narrowed eyes, knowing full well from where Lan Fan would have gotten that information. She ignored him, tucking a strand of hair below two others.

“For your information, I have never fainted,” he clarified, sitting beside Lan Fan. “I merely experience small lapses in consciousness, in which my feet fail to uphold my weight.”

She gave him an unconvinced look. Goodness, was this girl never impressed by anything?

“Never mind that!” he exclaimed. “We are going to Amestris University today!”

“To tell 'the brat' not to go home to Izumi?” Lan Fan asked, and Ling was mildly surprised she remembered the conversation that had transpired between him and the hot-tempered woman. If she was this observant, then it had been a wise choice for him to choose her for the job ahead. He'd merely hoped for a competent martial artist, but if she could pick up and remember things said in passing, she might be more valuable than he'd expected. Lucky him.

“Yes,” he answered. “Among other things.”

“Job-related things?”

“Lan Fan, people usually go to a school to, you know, _learn stuff.”_ Ling pointed to a knapsack hanging by the coat rack in the living room. “I'm a commerce student.”

At first, Ling had been convinced, with both parents running their own businesses, that it would be wise for him to choose a different path. Literature, maybe, or even the arts. He'd always been told he had a flair for the dramatic. That was until he woke up one day, with a death threat from a brother in their mailbox, the cheesily insidious words ' _I will make you pay_ ' scrawled in chicken scratch. And it was like an epiphany. There he was, thirteen-year-old Ling, threatened to pay for something he didn't buy (turned out it was bail – the brother was arrested for indecent exposure), and he realized, life was one big, ugly business. To live was to bargain. He might as well learn the best skills to run it.

His mother finished with the braid, wrapping an elastic at the end. There was a purple plastic rose hairpin sitting on the table, and she inserted it by Lan Fan's right ear.

“Ta-da! Oh, how wonderful, isn't it? I've always wanted a daughter!” his mother exclaimed, waving excited hands towards what she surely considered a masterpiece.

“Ma, my hair is longer than Lan Fan's. How come you've never put flowers in my hair?”

His mother ignored him. “This is great! And considering you've brought absolutely no decent clothes, I'll make it a point to help you shop! Oh this is awesome. Just like when Mei comes to visit!” She pocketed the small comb she'd been using to arrange Lan Fan's hair, and started out of the room. “Now I gotta go get ready for work. But this weekend! You. Me. The mall.” And with that, she rushed out of the dining room, and headed up the stairs.

“Mei?” Lan Fan turned back to him, fingering the rose tentatively. She cringed, and slowly pulled it from her hair, freeing a few locks from the tight braid to limply frame her face.

“She's my half sister.”

“The one your mother caught here in the house before deciding to murder you father eight different ways?”

Ling laughed, partly out of real amusement, and partly out of delight. He was now almost fully convinced of her canny ability to pick things up. “Well, she didn't quite get away with murder. Mei is several years younger than me, so my parents weren't together anymore by the time she'd been conceived. Still, that's not to say that my father wasn't a feast for the paparazzi for the entire week. Incidents did happen.”

Lan Fan whistled. “Remind me never to get in your mother's bad side.”

He laughed again and finished off his bun. “So. Amestris University today, and yes, there are some job related things we have to do. I'll need to introduce you to some people, and I believe we're getting news from a few of them.” He remembered setting an appointment with Mustang. The colonel himself might not appear, but one of his subordinates would surely be there. He was hoping it would be Hawkeye, so that she could meet Lan Fan again, but he doubted Mustang would let her go by herself. “Let me just get ready, and we can go. My first class starts at 11.”

He returned to his room, donning on a fresh pair of jeans, and a yellow sweater. For a moment he considered putting up his hair in a braid too, to match Lan Fan, but decided to bundle it up in the usual ponytail instead, just in case the former seemed a bit too childish. When he came out, he found the door to her grandfather's room open as he reached the platform to the second floor. He heard her voice inside.

That's right, they still needed to get a live-in nurse for him.

Though the door was wide open, he knocked first to let them know he was there. He found Lan Fan kneeling by the bedside, her grandfather pale and sweat-soaked. He let out weak coughing fits, and a small trail of blood slipped from the side of his lips. Lan Fan used a towel to wipe it away, and then poured a red liquid into his mouth. He sputtered a bit, but her careful handling ensured that most of the medicine went in.

“Hey, is he going to be alright? Do you want to take him to the hospital before we leave for school?” Ling asked, entering. “It's okay if we're a little late.”

She looked back at him, then shook her head. “No, it's okay. He should be fine now that he's drank his medicine.”

“We should get someone really soon to help out with him.”

“About that...” Lan Fan started. “I have a contact from Auto-Mail who has helped me out before. She's not a nurse, but she is careful. Would it be okay if we get her? She doesn't charge that much, so you don't need to worry about–”

“Money won't be a problem at all,” Ling assured her. “Give your friend a call, and give her our address. Tell her to come tonight if she can.”

“Thank you,” Lan Fan said, face clearly relieved.

He looked back at the old man, and watched as the restlessness slowly ebbed, allowing him to fall back into a deep slumber. Remembering how the man had greeted him the night before, Ling had a feeling that this man had once been a hale and agile fighter. It was sad to see someone fall prey to the clutches of a disease, mostly because of the high expenses, but also because there was no one to blame. It wasn't like a physical fight, not like a business deal. Nature wasn't calculating like that.

“Well, that was some quick medicine you got there,” Ling noticed, his eyes catching the bright crimson hue of the liquid. The bottle reflected a glint of light, and Ling paused. Strange that a prescription medicine should be in a clear, glass bottle. Didn't those come in plastic ones, wrapped with medical info and instructions nowadays?

“Who issued that?” Ling asked, reaching forward for the medicine in Lan Fan's hand. She noticed, and pulled back, showing him the small vial, but not allowing him to hold it.

“It's from an independent vendor.” Her voice was simple and direct, like how it had been last night when he inquired about her disappearance: it didn't allow further probing.

She turned back, and tucked it into the bag that held her grandfather's things. “Well, if you're ready, then we can go.”

“Would it be okay to leave your grandfather alone?” Ling asked. “Ma's going to work, and she doesn't have a regular schedule. Chances are we'd be here before her, and that would be around dinner time.”

She nodded. “Yeah, it's okay. His medicine has a twelve hour effectiveness. Things only get bad when I don't get to administer the medicine in time, but so long as he takes it once in the morning and once in the evening, he'll be alright.” She turned back, feeling the old man's forehead. “If we could get some food near him though, it'll save him from having to wander the house looking for food.”

“Right.” Ling and Lan Fan went back down to the kitchen, rummaged the fridge for some easy food they could provide for the old man. What was his name again? He didn't think Lan Fan had ever mentioned. How rude of him, not to even ask. His mother would scold him.

“Hey, uhm, what should I call your grandfather?” he asked, as he found a pack of microwaveable mashed potatoes. He tossed it in the microwave for a minute.

“Fu would be just fine,” she answered. She held up a can of just-add-water miso soup, her look asking him if she could give it to her grandfather. He nodded, and grabbed a bowl of left-over wonton noodles from the buffet last night. He heated them up as well, hoping they'd still be marginally warm when the old man needed them, and brought them up to the bedroom in a tray. When that was done, he shouted out to his mother to say they were leaving.

-o-

“Are you sure I'm allowed to be here?” Lan Fan whispered to him. She kept close by his side, the crowded University campus making her jumpy.

“Why not?” Ling asked. “Everyone's welcome here.”

“It's a private institution, isn't it? Don't I have to pay?”

“It's the education we're paying for,” Ling explained. “The buildings themselves are open to everyone.”

“Where are we going?”

“The Great Hall,” he said. It was the only one that could fit all the students taking the first year introductory psychology course. He noticed, since they stepped out of his car in the parking lot, that Lan Fan had been greatly distracted. Ling almost wondered how she could not have had whiplash as she turned her head back and forth every two seconds. He knew that downtown South City could be extremely busy; a boy with a car and nowhere to park could never forget that in this metropolis. Today they had to walk half an hour from the nearest plaza with an empty space he could find to the heart of the campus. It wasn't bad, but he was starting to feel sorry for Lan Fan. Did her neck hurt?

“What's wrong?” he asked. “Are you looking for someone?”

“I'm looking for _many_ someones,” she muttered. “How am I supposed to protect you in this beehive? I don't know who I'm even looking for. It could be just about _anybody_.”

“Hey, give me some credit!” Ling said, defensively. “I've never pissed off that many people.”

“I'm sure your father did,” she retorted. “And what about those brothers you said were out to get you?”

“I doubt they'd get me here with this many witnesses.” Ling was almost certain of that, but like he'd learned to do since the disastrous Greed 1.0, he allowed a trickle of doubt creep into him. It was no longer safe for him to make bold assumptions, thinking his safety was assured. “You can relax a little bit.”

She sighed, her shoulders easing slightly. He maneuvered them through the crowd, eyes combing the posts for street signs. School had started only a week back, and he still hadn't memorized the campus very well. It was large enough that the ten minutes between each class implied a healthy cardio for anyone trying to get from one side of the campus to the other. But it wasn't as large as Ling would expect of the Amestris University campus located in the heart of Central City.

Central... if South was a beehive, Central was a jungle.

He found the intersection leading to the Great Hall. He was leading Lan Fan through a shortcut in between two other buildings, crossing a paved walkway, when he felt her suddenly jerk against him, and he found himself trapped between Lan Fan's body and the brick wall of Boyle Centre.

“This isn't exactly my idea of–” He stopped short, when he heard grunts, and the distinct sounds of limbs hammering against each other. He looked up over Lan Fan's shoulders and realized what was going on.

Ed showed up.

And, as usual, his idea of saying hello was through a punch.

Ling wiggled his way from the wall, but Lan Fan's hand pushed him back against it. She positioned her body, so that she was blocking him from Ed's assaults.

“Hey, Lan Fan, it's okay!” he yelled, sliding once again from her grasp and asserting himself between the two. He deflected one of Lan Fan's kicks with a quick turn of leg, and he caught Ed's next punch squarely in his fists. “Ed here is my friend.”

Lan Fan's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, so wide they were with disbelief.

“Oh,” she said, much louder than he'd ever heard her before. “Wh-what is this... some kind initiation to your circle of friends? Or is physical violence a prerequisite for your friendship?”

“Who is this?” Edward asked, looking Lan Fan up and down. “Your maid got lost or something?”

Lan Fan snarled at him, but turned her attention back to Ling. “So when you hired me, is that to protect you from your _friends_?”

“No, of course not!” Ling said. “I'm a very sociable kind of guy, you know. I don't discriminate. I find pals anywhere from the sweetest little kitten to the crazy roaring lion – ah, wait not the hair!”

“Who are you calling little, you shifty-eyed punk?” Edward had grabbed his pony-tail, pulling it back.

“Not you, Ed! Trust me. You're not exactly sweet, nor particularly kitten-like.” Edward released him, and Ling pulled the hair elastic free, his hair falling down to his shoulders. He fingered the spot where the ponytail had sprouted, feeling his scalp aggrieved. He massaged it gently.

“Geez, and this is Lan Fan. You know, the girl you sent me. Have those books you've been reading addled your long-term memory or something?”

“Lan Fan?” he asked, wide-eyed with surprise. “Oh. I thought you said you were looking for a bodyguard.”

“Shh, keep it down, would you? Yes, she _is_ my bodyguard.”

Ed sneered. “Eh, okay. It's just that... I was sorta expecting her to look like Armstrong or something. I don't know her. I asked Winry and Paninya to take care of the whole matchmaking thing, and if it's good enough for Win, I was sure it'd be good enough for you.”

Ling nodded. “Yes, she's good, so I'd appreciate it if you don't go around beating her up.”

“Like he could,” he heard Lan Fan mumble beneath her breath. For one intense moment, the three of them stood in an awkwardness so solid, Ling could have almost held it in his hands. He cleared his throat.

“Class? Our prof doesn't exactly appreciate stragglers.”

The rest of the walk to the Great Hall was blanketed in uneasiness, with his two friends as rigid as poles on either side of him. Where was Al when you needed him? Ling had a feeling that the introduction would have gone so much better if Al was here. He'd know how to smooth things over, make up for his brother's lack of decorum. But Al visited the University only once or twice a week. He was still a high school student after all; he only came here to converse with a pharmaceutical professor who had given him a research project. Al was, if anything, quite an over achiever. Not that his brother wasn't, but Ed... Ed didn't exactly use niceties to display his skills.

During lecture, Ling noticed the way Lan Fan pored over his notes, often pointing out things from the slides that she felt he should jot down. Even without the motivation to do so, she focused on the lecture, more so even than Ling himself, who found his attention wandering from time to time. She particularly perked up when the professor involved the entire class, about a thousand students packed in the hall, in a little activity. The right half of the class was told to close their eyes for a time as the professor revealed to the other half a series of pictures, where the left most image gradually changed shape to form the right most. Then the activity was repeated, but with the halves interchanged. When everyone was told to open their eyes, one single image was projected on the large screen.

“How many of you see an old woman?” The left side of the hall almost exclusively raised their hands. “Now how many see a man carrying a sack?” The right side, where Ling, Ed and Lan Fan were, raised theirs. The young professor then turned back to his projector and removed two slips of paper that had been covering either side of the image. It turned out that the series of images that they had been shown initially were only half of the entire collection. The actual first picture most resembled a woman's face, and the actual last a stooped traveler with a heavy load. The middle image was somehow somewhere between the two.

“You see, your mind is more ready to see something if it's been primed to it,” the professor began to explain. “This is why observational bias is so dangerous to experiments. This is also what sometimes happens in self-fulfilling prophecies when...”

“This is fascinating,” Lan Fan whispered beside him. He looked at her, finding an excited glint in her eyes. “You have to learn this for business?” she asked.

“No, but it's definitely helpful,” he agreed. “Psychology can certainly be applied when you need to do a little persuasion.” He smiled. “If you're interested, maybe after your contract with me, you can apply to a college or something. Take a couple of courses or get a degree. You'd have enough money for it.”

The glint disappeared, and Lan Fan sobered. Ling was about to ask what it was he said that upset her, but the professor began another set of class interaction. He made sure to file it away in his mind, ready for grabbing when he got the chance to ask her in a more appropriate time.

When the class was dismissed, and the three of them filed out of the building, Ling spotted a certain militant lounging about in front of a cafe, smiling at random girls. Ed nudged him in the ribs, letting him know he noticed Havoc too.

“What? What's wrong now?” Lan Fan asked.

“There's our man,” Ling whispered to her, nodding in Havoc's direction.

“Oh great. Do we just go up? Say some password or something?”

Ling grinned. “No, we have to be more subtle than that. A bunch of college kids walking up to a State Military man? Not exactly ordinary, is it?”

“Gah, I hate subtlety!” Ed whined.

“Then what do we do?” Lan Fan asked.

Ling's grin widened. “He's an enforcer. There's only one way to grab their attention: make trouble.” Ling sidestepped to catch a bun being passed between a hotdog vendor and a skinny student. In one swift motion, he threw the hotdog to the street, where it caught between the wheels of a cyclist. The impediment threw the rider off of his seat, and sent him smashing into a parked car. The vehicle's alarm went off, startling the other students making their way to their next classes. A crowd had begun to gather around the hotdog vendor and the bicyclist, though by the way he was pushing himself off of the car, Ling could tell he wasn't gravely injured.

“Excuse me, excuse me punks, let me through,” Ling heard Havoc's voice as the man made his way through the crowd. “Now, now what's going on here?”

“That boy stole my lunch and attacked that cyclist over there!” the skinny student shouted to Havoc, an accusing finger pointing straight at Ling.

“Me?” Ling feigned. “I didn't mean it! It was an accident! I was practicing my golf swing.” From the corner of his eyes, he could see Lan Fan's pained expression, one that told him she was so tired and unimpressed with his excuses.

“You, young man, are coming with me,” Havoc replied, his cigarette balanced tipsily between two fingers. He turned to Edward. “And you as well.”

“Me?” Ed asked. “What did I do?”

“I saw you smile,” Havoc explained. “Finding amusement in other people's misfortune is quite the crime.”

“Since when?” Ed raged.

“Since you committed it, young man. Now both of you...” he trailed, eyes catching Lan Fan's. Ling gave the smallest nod he could to indicate that Havoc had to take her too. “And you Miss, for being a passive witness, and thereby a guilty accomplice. You must also come with us.”

The crowd parted to let them through, whispers beginning to spread. Havoc led them around the street to where he parked a State Military issued car, and motioned for them to get in.


	4. Chapter 4

Lan Fan watched the campus speed by as the car drove away from the Great Hall. The crowd surrounding the hotdog vendor and the bicyclist began to disperse. She looked at the driver in front of her, noting the cigarette trapped between his lips. He wasn't old; early thirties maybe. Beside her, Ling slouched in his seat, the ever-present smile still plastered on his face.

“When is your next class?” she asked.

“I have one now, actually,” he answered. “But it's not too problematic. The syllabus we received at the beginning of the course outlined the topics that would be covered. I can always catch up.”

She frowned. People like him paid so much to be able to register at a school, and yet they didn't take it seriously. She knew that Operation Greed was a much bigger, more urgent priority for Ling than studying was, but why pay for education when he wasn't going to reap all the benefits? Bah, people with money.

The crowd of students thinned as they wound their way past the narrow streets of the campus. The man – Havoc, she thought Ling called him – drove them about fifteen minutes outside of the school territory, and stopped in front of a small, old building, not worn-down and shabby, but boring and functional. He then led them to a room on the lower floor, a wide expanse of space bordered by simple white walls. It housed tables with computers and laptops, a large metal cabinet, a low wooden desk, and several couches.

“Hideout?” she asked, and Ling grinned in agreement. “It's kind of conspicuous don't you think?”

Havoc snickered. “The computers are loaded with games and pictures of cats. It takes a specific password to boot it up to the right hard drive partition with the information we need. If anyone comes in here, they're most likely going to think these are owned by a bunch of lonely gamers.” He cleared a space on the low table, and motioned for them to sit down. Grabbing one of the tablets, he drew up a document, and presented it to them.

“Here's the result of our meeting with Henry Chu.”

Lan Fan perked up. They had _already_ met with Chu? This was moving a lot faster than she thought.

“This is a copy of the actual contract Grumman signed just this morning,” Havoc continued. “Mustang had Falman draw the provisional deal yesterday, but it was only approved earlier today.”

Ling took the tablet in his hands, scrolling through it faster than Lan Fan could read. She heard Edward's protests against him too, but he didn't stop.

“I don't understand,” Ling said. “That's a strange thing to ask for – a piece of washed up land beside the mines.”

“Yeah, we had some trouble understanding it too,” Havoc admitted. “Though it is a little naïve to assume we'd always know your father's motivations.”

“Good point,” Ling offered the tablet to Ed, who began his own series of scroll-throughs. From his bag, Ling took out his own laptop and began typing some notes.

“I guess this is as good a time as any to discuss the next steps of the plan,” he said. “You guys have already taken your first steps. It's Auto-Mail's turn.” He turned to Edward. “This next part is crucial. As my mother would dramatically say, it is 'the point of no return.' Well, almost. We can still retract the operation after Aut-Mail has sealed a deal with 7-11, but it would rouse my father's suspicion a lot. Whatever we do, we do _not_ want to arouse that man's suspicion. So... are you sure about this?”

Ed returned the tablet to Havoc. “Winry said she was sure about it. And to be honest, I think... I think Auto-Mail is faring a lot worse than we want to admit. Chu has been attacking our main sponsors. He already 'bought' Resit Cavern and Weom and co. Either we take Chu out and Auto-Mail can breathe a little easier for the next few years, or we fall apart now. But how about you?” He turned to Havoc. “Are you sure you want to risk your positions in the government conspiring with the black markets?”

Lan Fan actually wondered the same thing.

“It's a little embarrassing,” Havoc said, rubbing the back of his neck. He took one last draft from his cigarette and put it aside in a tray. “You kids might be too young to remember, but the revolution years ago–”

“I remember,” Lan Fan interjected. “The Sanitary Movement. Yeah, I remember it well...” she trailed off when the three gave her interested stares. She shifted uncomfortably, pushing the memories of sudden eviction and scrambling for fake papers out of her mind to focus on their discussion on hand.

Ling nodded, almost as if agreeing with her, but there was something in his eyes – the same one she'd seen when he didn't get quite what he wanted, but resolved to follow it up later.

“The usurpers made a deal with Chu back then,” Havoc continued. “Millions of sens for the revolt against Bradley, in exchange of something we thought was a fair trade... until now. We still haven't been able to pay back the loan, and now we're needing the collateral.”

“What is it?” Lan Fan asked.

Havoc cringed. “Not sure I'm supposed to say. This would be a topic to bring up next time you see the colonel himself. But let's just say that it is in Amestris' best interests to have it back as soon as possible.”

“So you're going to use the operation to get around your contract? Steal back the collateral without paying off your debt?” Ed snickered. “I'm starting to question just how much trust I put in you.”

“It's a little too late for that kind of questioning,” Havoc replied. “It's your turn to have tea with Cthulhu.”

“Alright,” Ed sighed, slinging his arm over the back of his chair. “When do you think would be the best time to do it?”

“It would be best if you do it before Mustang's team is ordered to start the investigation,” Ling suggested. “That way, you already have the contract, and we can coordinate our moves around what we already know.”

“The investigation starts by the end of the month,” Havoc said.

“And how much more do we need to plan?” Ed asked.

“Quite a bit more, actually,” Ling said, opening up a document on his computer. He didn't bother hiding it from Lan Fan, which made her feel relieved. “We'd want the whole act to be as convincing as possible. Which means that we have to show signs that Mustang's team actually tried their very best to infiltrate the black markets for information. And Auto-Mail needs to show that they were well prepared for their advances and were able to deflect them thanks to Chu's funds. All of this needs to be coordinated.”

Havoc whistled. Lan Fan nodded in assent. It seemed like a huge amount of work before the end of the month arrived, only two weeks away. And she still wasn't quite sure what her part would be in all this.

“And I was hoping the frame-up would involve your team actually finding the stash of money Auto-Mail borrowed from 7-11, as well as the actual contract.”

“That might come across as spectacular luck on our part or some real carelessness on Auto-Mail's. If we aren't synchronized perfectly, we might as well wave a banner saying 'Something fishy going on here',” Havoc said. “I'll pass it on to Mustang. He likes ruminating on things like that.” Lan Fan heard Edward snort.

They packed up after that, setting up a date for regrouping after eight days. Havoc reminded them that should they want to contact Mustang, they'd need to go through the encrypted lines. He dropped them off near the campus, and Lan Fan wondered if anyone from the fiasco earlier would notice them and wonder why they hadn't been detained.

-o-

On the night Winry and Ed set out to meet with Henry Chu, Ling packed Lan Fan in a rented car and drove her to Tobha. It was a little more than an hour's ride from Dublith, and they started their journey just after dinner. On her lap was Ling's backpack, filled with some of the papers that had taken up permanent residence on his desk in the secret room, as well as his laptop.

She had taken out the blueprints of Chu's office in Tobha, the newest one he had built in South Area. Apparently the man was always on the lookout to build newer sites; it helped him access more people if he stooped about like a vulture, or so she heard.

But Edward and Winry made the appointment with Henry Chu in Rush Valley. He would not be anywhere near Tobha. And if their sources were correct, he'd make his way to the financial district of Central by catching the midnight train.

“What kind of security do we have to worry about?” she asked Ling, squinting at the blueprints against the yellow light of the passing lampposts. It would terrible if she failed in her duty of guarding her client the first time that they actually went on an official job-related mission.

She tried to quell her thumping heart. It would be even worse for her if _she_ got caught.

“Security guards, cameras and alarms at the very least,” Ling answered her.

“Are we going undercover?”

He grinned, “Would you like it if we did?”

Lan Fan shook her head, fighting the infectious effect of his smile. “I'm not sure what good that would do for me,” she glanced at her left side. There weren't many people she knew who practiced martial arts and who only had one arm. She would be pinpointed much too quickly either way, unless part of her cover would be to attach a fake one. She didn't like the idea of that. Much too unwieldy; perhaps if she had at least a few days to practice moving around with it.

“Well, we're not going to,” he said, passing her a chocolate bar. “Even though XYZ Ltd. is a large company, the employees working together are trained vigorously. They would recognize anyone who isn't among them anyway. The best way to go about this would be to avoid detection at all costs.”

She liked that idea.

“So we sneak,” she stated. The bodyguarding work she had done in the past was quite different from sneaking. A whole lot different.

“Don't worry too much,” Ling said. “I've been in the Tobha site before. I know a little bit about how to infiltrate it. I will show you once we get off the highway.”

“You've been there before?”

“Yes! That's how I got a copy of the blueprint after all.”

“So what are we going to do back there?”

“Just something I call general snoop-work. I try to find whatever I can about my father's current business deals, or even something in his personal life, that can help me. Also, as a member of Auto-Mail, one of the things I can provide to other clients is information about the general state of affairs among common financers.”

“Did you know about Auto-Mail's money problem?” Lan Fan asked.

Ling's face darkened with concern. “I did. We managed to bribe Resit Cavern to hold out a bit before succumbing to XYZ, but Father threatened the co-owner, and that was that.”

Lan Fan stayed quiet for the rest of the way, focusing instead on the floor plan of the small building. There were only two floors and a basement. Ling had joked that the basement was reserved for “persuasion,” but she didn't find that a joking matter in the least.

Ling parked the car in front of a bus station. “This is the outermost station in Tobha. It wouldn't be a good idea to park anywhere near 7-11 even in a rented car. We'll take the bus the rest of the way, and back when we return.”

“What if we need to make a quick getaway?” Lan Fan asked.

“Run fast.” From one of the compartments he pulled out a small waist bag, and opened it for her to see. There was a credit card, a wad of cash, a bus pass, and a cellphone inside, as well as some gears and a few electronic gadgets. “This is for you.”

Ling then pulled the blueprint from her, switched on the car light, and took out a pen.

“We make our entrance here,” he told her, circling a door at the western side of the building. “It leads into a storage room, and just outside of it is a small staircase to the upper floor. This,” he boxed a room on the second level near the back. “Is my father's study. This is where we want to go.”

“Why can't we go through the window?” Lan Fan asked.

“The windows have alarms. Anything that can be used as an entrance does, even the air vents. We're going through the storage room, because that's the route to the study that I'm most familiar with. And also, because of the cameras,” Ling took out a stapled bunch of papers from his bag. They contained pictures of a camera model, and small notes on the side.

“My father uses wireless IP cameras for surveillance. There is one installed in the storage room itself,” Ling explained. “Lucky for us, because we can use this.” He held up a short memory stick. “It has a virus. We can transmit it to the monitors and central storage, which would corrupt the system. That way, we wouldn't need to worry about the cameras at all after the infection.”

“What if they have anti-virus?” Lan Fan asked. She doubted someone like Henry Chu would allow his computers to be so unprotected.

“This should get past those,” Ling said. “At least, that's what Fuery tells me. He designed it himself. That said, we do only have fifteen minutes tops to do our stuff, before someone might be able to get things back in order.”

“ _Fifteen_ minutes? That's not a lot of time at all!”

“You'll be surprised. The biggest time killer would be getting from the storage room to the study. Of course it would be a little harder if someone catches us, so I'm hoping you have a lot of practice being stealthy.” He took out a bottle. “Here's a sedative if someone does manage to catch us. It gives the extra benefit of wiping out the past twenty-four hours of the recipient’s memory.”

“Where did you get this?”

“It was a joint project between Mei and Edward's brother, Alphonse,” Ling said.

Lan Fan bit her lip. At first, Ling had seemed only an overzealous teen trying to put on shoes bigger than his feet. But now, she was starting to see that she had underestimated him a tad bit. He was much more well-prepared than she expected.

He smirked, “They're sort of... an item.” He then flipped off the light, and jumped out of the car. She followed suit, and they both walked the rest of the way to catch the next bus.

-o-

The frigid air bit Winry's skin. But she didn't know if the shiver that followed had to do with the cold or with the ominous shadow behind the 7-11 building attempting to swallow her. Ling's warning came ringing in her mind, had been ringing since she had left her house.

_Henry Chu could ask for anything as collateral. Anything_.

Winry shook herself, hands clasping in fists to keep in the warmth. She reminded herself firmly that this was just a ruse. They were in a better position than those who came to him with all other doors closed. If Chu asked for something they could not afford, there was no imminent danger to themselves. The operation would be at risk, but there were no personal threats to any of them.

_Plus_ , she thought, well aware that she was comforting herself much too frequently for ease to truly take root. _Most of the money would be untouched._ They would bargain for a reasonable amount that a group of rebels trying to evade the government would likely make, but since they would be involved in the fabricated purging of their own network, there really wasn't much to spend on.

“When is that bastard coming?” Ed growled beside her. “He's been making us wait for half-an-hour now! In the cold, no less!”

Winry had set up an appointment with XYZ Ltd. for tonight, and had received in their correspondence clear instructions that they were to wait outside of the lobby, before they would be escorted inside by none other than Chu himself.

“One would think he'd treat his customers a little nicer than this,” he continued.

Winry shook her head. “With the kind of collaterals he asks for, I doubt being nice is the first on his priority list.”

“You're absolutely right, Ms. Rockbell,” a voice, cool and low, floated from the doorway, as the glass panes, locked merely moments before, slid to the side. Out stepped several men, at the front of which was Henry Chu. “Being nice is not the first on my priority list. Being smart is.” He gave her a smile, dashing on his Xingese features, but Winry saw nothing of Ling in it. His short hair was combed back, graying at the roots, yet sleek and shiny. She wondered if that was the reason he was thirty minutes late, and almost laughed about it.

Ed, on the other hand, glowered at the tall man.

“But,” Henry Chu reached for Winry's hand, and for one numb moment, she didn't know whether to recoil or to play along. Her indecision left her unmoving, and she watched as he lifted her hand to his lips and gave it a soft kiss. “Being nice is my second.”

Ed made a sound as if he was throwing up in his mouth.

Winry gave an uncomfortable laugh and weaseled her hand out of Chu's grasp. Behind her, she could practically feel disgust oozing off of Ed in buckets, and she balked at the image of him making faces at this one person who needed to purchase their lie tonight.

Henry Chu merely smiled, a charming one, and nodded his head in the direction of the door.

They followed him and his bodyguards – at least Winry thought they were guards, but perhaps they could be thickly built assistants – through the lobby, up a wide set of stairs, and down a carpeted corridor. She had to give Ed a warning glance to remind him not to let his temper get the better of him. Finally, they were ushered inside a large, clean office. Chu settled himself behind a long, oaken desk, empty except for a laptop gleaming silver in the lamplight.

“Sit down,” he gestured towards the chairs opposite from him. “Now, as I understand it, you two are from Auto-Mail.” He said the last word slowly, almost as if savouring its taste, and there was a twinkle in his eyes that reminded Winry of a wolf.

“Yes,” she replied. “We wish to apply for a loan.”

Chu smiled, hand rubbing his chin. “I see, I see. Though to be thoroughly honest, I am quite surprised to hear from you! I'd have thought that Auto-Mail was doing quite well on its own. For certain, I have not heard from Auto-Mail since I have built this company.”

Winry nodded politely, pointedly ignoring the fact the he knew full well he'd eaten out two of their biggest sources of money.

“Auto-Mail has recently met some... misfortunes,” was all she said.

Chu nodded, and opened up his laptop. “Fair enough. How much do you need?”

Well, so it was true what they said. Hardly any questions asked.

“Four million sens,” Winry said, confidently, as if she and her entire team of Auto-Mail admins had spent weeks calculating this exact value.

Chu raised an eyebrow. “Four million,” he muttered, though he looked more amused than surprised. “That's quite a bit of sum. This isn't going to be a boring meeting, is it? But then again, I doubted that it would be.” He leaned back against his chair, and began typing.

Winry saw Edward fidget on his seat, and held her breath. This was his part. Nobody else could hijack a person's attention like Ed could. And for the frame to work, they needed Chu's full attention on this one particular piece of information.

“We're deflecting a government investigation,” Ed said with the perfect combination of pained reluctance and embarrassed admission. She could have almost laughed for the second ill-timed moment of the night. She hadn't known that Ed could act this well.

Chu's fingers paused over his keyboard. Slowly, his small smile spread into an outright sneer and he cocked his head to the side, as if assessing something about them, about the situation.

“How interesting,” he replied. “I doubt four million sens is enough for that, my lad.”

“Don't call me your lad!” Ed snapped. “Or do so many kids now come claiming you as their father that it's much easier for you to assume that every kid is yours?”

“Ed!” Winry hissed, eyes wide in outrage, but Chu just laughed.

“I like you,” the Xingese man replied. “I've heard of your late father, Edward Elric. Renowned mathematician. His algorithms are now used widely in the sciences. I had a great deal of respect for the man. So let me give you a piece of advice. I know things that you don't, and trust me when I say that the amount you ask is not enough for that kind of goal.”

Winry suspected that Chu was referring to the fact that a team of state militants came to him earlier in the week. How dramatically ironic for them to know what he assumed they didn't. She cut in before Ed could open his mouth again. “I don't mean to be cheeky, but how do we know that you're not just buoying the price up so that the collateral would just be as pricey?”

“Well, how about this? I will name the collateral for four million sens,” he said, clasping his hands so he could rest his chin on top. “And I will give you a leeway of another million for the same price.”

“And what would that price be?” Ed asked.

Chu smiled. A toothy, predatory smile. “You, Ms. Winry Rockbell. You every weekend until the debt is paid.”

-o-

The door to the storage room was situated between the office building and a neighbouring burger shop, and the greasy aroma of grilled meat almost distracted Ling from opening the door. The cold air didn't pierce past his knitted cap, and his gloved hands helped against the blowing wind as much as it did to hide his fingerprints. He fumbled with the lock for a minute, remembering the little tricks he'd learned from Paninya, and within moments, he heard the undeniable click of the tumblers giving way. He pulled the door open, slowly, and allowed Lan Fan to squeeze through.

“Remember,” he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Don't worry. It's my neck before yours.”

They kept to the walls. Ling hoped that the camera hadn't been relocated since he had last visited. He noticed that it was still wedged between the two tall shelves, and exhaled contentedly. He pulled Lan Fan down to squat beside him against the first shelf to hide themselves from the camera's view, as he readied his laptop.

“Time to send Mr. Virus,” he whispered, and he ran the program that hijacked the connection from the camera to the receiver, and used that same connection to transfer the contents of the memory stick. Within moments, he glimpsed a small, flashing red light at the base of the camera, indicating an error in reaching the central system.

Bingo.

“Let's go.”

He rushed to the door, which was fortunately locked from the inside only, opened it, and after inspecting that there was nobody nearby – most of those in this part of the building seemed to be rushing to the camera room – he crossed the few feet between the storage entrance and the staircase in several wide steps. His shoes were silent on the stairs. He couldn't hear Lan Fan behind him, and that was good. He had dressed her similarly in dark garments, with a high collar that hid half her face. She still wore his Greed mask that she had turned into a hat, and he couldn't help but smile at that.

Reaching the top of the staircase, he opened the door that led into the main floor, and glimpsed into the hallway leading out. No one was there. But the hallway was long and narrow. If someone were to turn, he and Lan Fan would not have anywhere to hide. He patted the shooter hanging from his belt, and double checked that he'd loaded it with Mei's sedative. He slipped through the door, and began walking down the hallway.

Ling crossed its length quickly, eager to get to a wider space littered with entrances to many rooms. Rounding the corner, he found two guards, exactly in front of his father's study. He moved back against the cover of the wall, but he heard the surprised yelp of one of the guards, and knew that he'd been spotted. Ling grabbed the shooter from his belt, but before he even had a chance to move, he heard the telltale popping noise of the shooter going off twice.

He looked up, and found Lan Fan standing before him, her own shooter poised in her hand. Turning his head, the two guards were now slumped against the wall.

Nice. She was so fast. He gave Lan Fan a quick smile, before approaching his father's door. Like the one in the storage room, he worked Paninya's magic on this one as well.

“Here, pull them inside,” he told Lan Fan. It would be nice if they could prop the guards up in mock display, so anyone peeking for a quick check wouldn't notice something wrong right away, but they didn't have time. He dragged one of them by the pits, and Lan Fan took the other by the collar.

Once inside, Ling rushed to the table, and began rummaging through the papers piled there.

“Don't take anything. Just pictures,” he instructed her.

His father was a smart man. If any of Ling's past excursions had taught him something, it was that his father had a pattern for where he placed his things. Chu would put useless, unhelpful, and even misleading things in places like safes, locked drawers, and hidden binders. But the real treasure were stowed away haplessly on desk surfaces, tucked in between fashion magazines and pictures of pretty women. So that was where he told Lan Fan they had to look.

Ling found a list of upcoming appointments under a paperweight. He snapped a photo of it. He flipped through a notebook with scribbles, and began taking pictures of random pages, especially the ones with numerical figures on them. Glancing at his watch, they were at the nine minute mark. There was a camera installed in the study. Ling noticed that it was still flashing the red light. Good.

“Hey, take a look at this,” Lan Fan held up a woman magazine, and took a picture out from in between. Ling almost cringed, but noticed the oddity of the image.

“That's not an attractive woman,” he commented.

“I... don't think it's a woman at all,” she stepped beside him, and they both inspected the picture. It was an image of an old person, dressed as a woman alright, with round spectacles hooked over their nose. There was a flamboyant, purple hat sitting on their head, a gaudy scarf wrapped around the neck.

It took a moment for Ling to recognize where he had seen the face before. “Wait, is that who I think it is?”

“It's President Grumman,” Lan Fan said. “Crossdressing.”

“Nah, he uses that as a disguise,” Ling explained. “Been at it since before the Sanitary Movement. I heard he used it quite often then.”

“I don't think this picture is that old.”

“He's been known to employ that strategy from time to time. Gets him in certain places he otherwise would have trouble going to.”

Lan Fan left the picture tucked in the magazine, and went back to the stack of books she was scouring through. “There are more of him here,” she pulled out newspaper clippings and online article printouts, highlighted and noted, from between the stacks. All of them about the president's whereabouts and political leanings.

“Interesting.” He took a snapshot of each of the articles, and tugged them back to where Lan Fan found them. “Okay, I think it's time we start wrapping up.”

Lan Fan looked around, as if she still wanted to continue rummaging through the room. “Maybe we'd find other things,” she said.

“We might have found more than you think we have,” Ling assured her. “Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Come on,” he urged.

He went to the windows, noticing the small gadget attached to the sill. Exiting was much easier than getting in, usually, because the alarms could be disabled from the inside. He didn't know the code to shut the alarm off, but he did notice the wedge in plastic at the bottom of the device, which allowed him to pry open the battery compartment and remove the power source.

Ling lifted the window pane, and stepped out on the ledge. This had been his exit of choice last time too. Because of the study's location, he now faced a brick wall that separated the office building from the next block of offices. One strong jump was all it took for him to grab the top of the wall. From there, it was easy for him to swing himself over.

Lan Fan was hot on his heels. She didn't forget to shut the window, but it would already be clear that someone had infiltrated the office. From the surveillance virus to the two unconscious men, his father would definitely hear word of this. It was a good thing that Ling was not the only one who was interested in his father's business. The man had a good list of suspects to choose from.

The two jumped off the wall, and landed on the street on the other side.

“Hey!”

Ling barely had time to turn around, before he registered the sound of a gun going off, and Lan Fan stumbling against his back.

“Run!” she whispered to him, a hand latching onto his arm. He sprinted.

Another shot, and Lan Fan pushed him ahead. “Go in front of me!” she ordered.

He looked at her, but she didn't look hurt; she was pulling her hat low on her head, fixing up the collar of her coat to cover her face. He kept running. He felt a piece of metal ricochet from the impact of another shot, as the bullet hit a group of garbage bins.

The alley opened up, and he rounded the corner.

“Go the other way!” he told her.

“I'm supposed to protect you,” she said, but stumbled backwards as another shot was fired. Ling looked back into the alley, and found the gunman running after them. It was too dark to make out specifics – and he hoped that the same thing can be said about them – but he could tell she was a woman. Her red hair was tied back in a pony tail.

“We'll make better progress if we split up,” he began running down the eastbound street. “I'll meet you at the car!”

He saw guards spilling from the front door of the office. Ling crossed the street, just as he began to hear cars revving up from the office's parking lot. Looking behind his shoulder, he saw that the woman had decided to follow him instead of Lan Fan. She was directing the others; she must be the lead guard for the night. Ling lifted his tranquilizer, and released a needle. When the woman keeled over in the middle of the street, he knew he hadn't missed.

Ling looked ahead and saw an open Xingese noodle house. He ran inside, where a young Xingese woman was serving two diners. She looked up at him, startled, and he put a finger to his lips. He took off his coat, reversed it, and wore it with the blue skin out, instead of the black. He pulled off his hair elastic, and shook his hair free, like those women he saw on shampoo commercials.

“Vegetarian dumplings?” he asked, holding up two 10-sens bills. The young server hesitated, confused, but nodded her head. “I'll, uh, grab it on my way out,” Ling said, placing the bills on top of the counter, and made his way through the kitchen. He heard sounds of protests from the girl, but he ignored them. He took out a small, sling bag from his backpack, transferred all his things to it, and dumped the backpack in the trash can by the kitchen.

He heard an angry and surprised yelp from one of the cooks, but Ling merely stated in Xingese that he had already paid for the dumplings up front. He grabbed a plastic bento tray filled with the dumplings, and made his way out the back door.

He took a moment to listen to sounds of pursuit. Slowly, he made his way out to the street. He glanced around. He couldn't see any of the guards' cars. From the sling bag, he took out his headphones and one of his school notebooks. Hopefully from here he'd look like an ordinary student trying to squeeze a bit of studying at night. He walked towards one of the bus stops, and boarded the next one that came by. Just before it closed, one of the guards from Chu's office came in.

Ling looked away, trying to be appear as nonchalant as he could. The man walked slowly down the bus. He stopped in front of Ling. Ling allowed himself one glance at the man, a seemingly curious one that somebody innocent might give. He'd learned over the years that trying to avoid looking at a strange scenario was a good indication that you had something to do with it. The man was observing the passengers, including him. Slowly, Ling turned back to his phone as if he was adjusting the volume of the music he was listening to.

At the next bus stop, the man got off. Ling didn't relax, not completely, but the rest of the commute to the farthest station of Tobha was uneventful.

Ling was anxious of how long he would have to wait for Lan Fan. He exited the station and began walking to the parking lot. Going solo on missions like this before, he never had to worry about anyone else. But it also meant that he had the full attention of all the guards whenever something went wrong. It wasn't quite a lie that he could take care of himself, but having that extra buffer – and knowing that said buffer was perfectly competent – gave him a little extra breathing room.

Fortunately, he saw Lan Fan already standing by the car when he approached. He smiled, and found himself a little more at ease.

“I didn't have the keys,” she said, pulling her coat closer to her.

“I'm sorry. How long have you been waiting?”

She shrugged. “Not long.”

“Good,” he smiled. “Glad to know that I'm not that far behind when it comes to escaping prowess.”

“I used up all the sedative needles though.”

So she left a trail of sleeping bodies. He nodded, knowing that sometimes that couldn't be helped. He opened the car, and both of them settled inside. Before driving away, he opened the car light, and inspected Lan Fan. There was a bullet hole on her left sleeve, right above where her elbow would have been. He believed it must have been from that first gunshot.

“I hope you don't mind buying me a new coat,” she said, a rare smile on her lips. He returned it.

“Not at all. Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked, fingering the hole in her sleeve.

“No, but I'm afraid I would have to charge some incidental fees.”

He smiled wider, and began to drive out of the parking lot. As they entered the highway, Lan Fan shifted beside him. “Actually, can I ask for something again?”

“What is it?”

“...a detour, if possible.”

-o-

The words struck Edward like a hammer charged with lightning, and he bolted out of his seat. His hand slammed Chu's laptop closed, trapping the man's fingers in between the metal folds. A spark of satisfaction snapped inside when he saw the man's smile crumple, replaced with a grimace.

Then amusement completely wore off, and when Chu's face clouded with a stormy rage, Ed realized he had crossed a line.

He didn't care. The line was asking to be crossed.

“That better not mean what I think it means, old man,” Ed said.

The room was silent. A boiling pressure was building inside Ed, and it was seducing him to fist the man in the gut. Then he heard the telling sound of a gun click behind him.

“Ed,” Winry warned. “Sit down.”

Bah, she talked as if he was a dog.

He eased away from the desk, but he didn't sit back down. It was nice to be standing, satisfying to be staring down rather than up.

“It means,” Chu began, talking slowly indeed as if to a dog. Ed glared. “Knowledge about Auto-Mail.” He turned back to Winry. “Every weekend, you will attend me for two hours in which you will answer any question I have whatsoever about Auto-Mail.”

“You want me to divulge company matters?” Secrets, more like it. But considering what Ling had to steal for Operation Greed 1.0, Edward found he could not muster any surprise by the request. Just rage.

Chu shrugged. “It's a fair trade, don't you think? Would that encourage you to pay me back as soon as possible?”

“And what do you intend to do with that information? Sell it to your friends?” Ed scoffed.

“What I do with your payment is up to me, same as I let you do whatever you wish with my money. Go ahead, pull the wool over the head of those military dogs, for all I care.” Chu sighed, opening his laptop again. “You are very suspicious of me. I should take it as a compliment. You think I'm smart.”

“I think you didn't get to where you are now without having a few surprises up your sleeves.”

“This is getting a bit juvenile,” Henry Chu sighed, running his hand through his shiny hair. “So, do we have a deal in the making or not? Five million sens for a weekend appointment with the young lady here?”

“It's _four_ million. No way we're racking up more interest,” Ed stated. “And you're crazier than I thought if you think I'd let Winry come here alone.”

“Do you have a different proposition?”

“I come with her.” Ed was no fool. If Chu truly wanted _just_ company secrets, why not ask for administrator rights to their databases? No, he wanted something more substantial, a more concrete form of insurance. For every single session he has with Winry, she would be playing the role of a hostage, and Ed could not allow that. At least, he could not allow her to be alone if something should go wrong. While he was not eager to be in Chu's clutches either, safety in numbers was an advice he was willing to take this time around.

Chu chuckled. Ed's hand itched to wipe that smile off his face, but disgust at the thought of having to touch the man helped him observe some decorum. The business man remained silent for a few minutes, typing on his laptop. When he stopped, a printer wheezed to life, spitting out several pages of written document. One of the men lining the wall adjacent to the door picked up the sheets and brought them over to Chu. He split the document in half, stapling the first batch and handing them over to Ed and Winry.

“Here is a preliminary outline of the loan application detailing our tentative agreement,” he explained. “You have twenty-four hours to think it over. By tomorrow night I will expect either an acceptance or a supplication to re-negotiate our deal, including termination. However, after you have accepted the agreement, there will no longer be further opportunities for renegotiation nor termination.”

Winry accepted the document, and folded it neatly in her bag. Ed glanced at his watch. The meeting had taken only twenty minutes. They were waiting for longer than that. He hoped that whatever Ling and Lan Fan were up to, they were finished with it.

When they exited the building, Ed gladly welcomed the crispiness of the autumn air, submerging the growing heat of annoyance inside him.

“I don't like it,” he said. “This is all Ling's fault, that shifty-eyed punk.”

“Shush! Stop being so loud, would you? And don't be too impulsive,” Winry told him, placing a firm yet calming hand on his shoulder. “We have an entire day to talk this over with the others.” She led the way out of the vicinity of XYZ Ltd. with him following her like a temperamental skulking shadow. Before they crossed the street to where they had parked their car, she turned back to him.

“I'm not afraid.”

Damn. He hated it when she said that. Because it usually meant that there was reason to be, and Winry – stupid, headstrong Winry – was just the type of person who would get involved in it without batting an eyelash.

-o-

Ling headed south as directed by Lan Fan, and stopped at a 24/7 post office halfway between Tobha and South City. Lan Fan was inserting a thick pile of bills, which she had withdrawn from a bank machine on their way here, inside an envelope. She licked the seal, and closed it.

“This is for Grandpa's medicine,” she told him in a low voice. There was a hesitance in the set of her shoulders, almost as if she was contemplating whether she ought to tell him about it. Ling got the notion from their previous conversation about her grandfather that she was receiving the medicine from someone not licensed to provide medication. He could understand the reason behind her hesitation.

She got out of the car, and went inside the post office. Inside, there were rows and rows of metal mailboxes on two of the walls. She unlocked one of them, and placed the envelope inside.

When she came back, she was quiet and much more somber.

“Is that how you make payments?” he asked, as he veered out of the parking lot.

“Yes. I make a deposit in that box. I usually make monthly payments, but sometimes when Grandpa is feeling worse than usual, I'd make extras. After five to seven days, I'd come back, and his medicine would be there.”

Ling nodded. It was as good an arrangement as any.

“How much is it?” he asked. “I mean, if you don't mind my asking.”

“It's 5,000 sens per bottle.”

Ling almost stomped on the breaks. “What? _Five thousand?_ ”

Lan Fan nodded, her shoulders seeming to sag even more. “It's expensive.”

“Geez, Lan Fan, for that small bottle? Are you sure your independent vendor is not ripping you off?”

“Unfortunately, he seems to have a monopoly.”

Ling shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing. His mind briefly flashed back to Lan Fan's old apartment, its ragged and worn-down state. Of the way she carefully handled his old mask. Of the longing in her eyes when he took her to school.

“Lan Fan, how long has your grandfather been sick?”

She stiffened. “Just a couple of years.”

Oh. That meant that her grandfather became ill around the same time she lost her arm. How she handled that, he could not even begin to imagine. A sickening feeling pooled in his stomach. Suddenly, he felt very uneasy and obnoxious with his large, clean house, his shelves filled to brimming with school textbooks, his fancy clothes, and even his good health. Sure, he fainted sometimes, but compared to Lan Fan or Fu, that was nothing.

“Maybe we can ask Winry to find someone else who carries that medicine,” Ling suggested. “If anyone would know, it would be her, for sure. Maybe even Dr. Marcoh would know.”

“I'd... rather not,” Lan Fan said, looking away from him.

“No? Well, why not?”

The girl shifted uncomfortably, hand reaching for the left sleeve of her coat. “Auto-Mail already has money issues. I'd like to keep mine out of it.”

Well, that was a strange thing to say for someone who used Auto-Mail to find the source of her next paycheck. The guilt-induced discomfort he was feeling metamorphosed into something a little more sour, a feeling he'd become accustomed to thanks to his rising unpopularity among his half-siblings. Lan Fan was a treasure of secrets, most of which he had no right to begrudge. But for the first time, he wondered if his fond curiosity towards this girl was not actually part suspicion.


	5. Chapter 5

Ling tipped the clear bottle against the sunlight, inspecting the crimson liquid it contained, which was translucent despite its thick viscosity. He still had his reservations about its ridiculous price and mysterious source. He and Lan Fan had made their trip back to the post office she used as a trading spot with her private vendor. True to his word, in place of the money that Lan Fan had deposited five days ago, was a glass bottle wrapped in a soft, blue handkerchief. Identical to the one that Lan Fan owned, the bottle was as big as his palm, only a little wider than his thumb. Lan Fan insisted that a bit of the antidote was usually enough to quell her grandfather's symptoms.

“If you give him more than a few drops at a time, would that make him a little better?” Ling felt short of stupid asking something like that – after all, he had once downed an entire bottle of cold medicine, and it didn't make the cold disappear. In actuality, all it had done was give his mother a heart attack and a quick, dangerous drive to the nearest hospital. For her heart attack as much as his overdose. Still, it was an odd little medicine with its own set of peculiarities, that he was reluctant to dismiss other strange possibilities.

“I've tried that. It relieves him of his symptoms for some days, but the sickness comes back. Unfortunately, it's not even linear in its effectiveness... it takes more of the medicine to keep him well for longer consecutive days, than when I administer it twice daily,” Lan Fan explained, swirling her straw in the plastic bubble tea cup, aiming for a dark tapioca pearl. “Just a few months ago, we could still afford enough to have him up and running about for three days at a time.”

“What happened then?” Ling asked, returning the bottle to her. They were sitting in an outdoor food court, having just come from Ling's last class of the day. He bought them a quick snack, and although Lan Fan didn't ask him to buy bubble tea, her longing look at the small kiosk near the sushi bar was incentive enough for him to get her two more stamps on her Tealicious card. It was ten sens well spent; he could understand why she was addicted to it.

“Price went up,” she answered.

Ling could only whistle. He believed that part, at the very least, to be true. Lan Fan did not seem to be a good liar. Or at least, the part of him he trusted to be a good judge of character thought that she wasn't. Then again, he wasn't sure how much he should trust it anymore. Lately, he had succumbed under an emotional itch he couldn't quite name nor scratch, and for the first time in his life, he did not have the words to explain it, let alone figure out how to solve it. Lan Fan was a good keeper of secrets. But she was no liar.

Still, he had an inkling about something, and he didn't know what.

“And you're sure that you can't get it anywhere else?”

She sent him a small frown, unnerving with her dark bangs framing the top of her eyes. Unnerving because it reminded him of the enigmatic beauties in movies that would seduce a man then stab him in the back. And to add to Ling's miserly pile of things to be confused about, he had no idea whether it bothered him more that he just likened her to an actress, or that he could end up with his back spliced open.

“I'm sure,” was her curt reply, and she looked away.

“You say that this medicine eases his _symptoms_ , but it never really cures his illness,” Ling said. “What exactly is your grandfather sick of?”

Lan Fan's fingers tightened on her Tealicious plastic cup. Her frown deepened. “I don't know,” she whispered. “And I don't really want to talk about it.”

Part lie, Ling thought. The first part seemed odd, but the second was plenty reasonable.

“Lan Fan,” he began again. “Is there... a hindrance of any kind that would prevent you from performing the job I employed you for?”

She stilled, eyes gazing through the bottle of medicine, staring at a distant middle. “What do you mean?” she asked at length.

Ling had no idea what he meant. He didn't even know if he was asking the right questions. No doubt that if he was his father, he would have figured this out by now. And that particular shortcoming burned. He had to be smarter than this.

He stayed with his question. “I mean, is there going to be any conflict of interests?”

Lan Fan looked back at him, and shook her head slowly. “As long as my grandfather is well taken care of, I'm okay.” She placed the bottle inside her small backpack, in a pocket stitched to the inner lining. “Oh, and...”

“And?”

Lan Fan bit her lip, eyebrows drawn in a frown. “Well, I guess it's pretty self-explanatory, but I can't get caught by Chu.”

Well, that was also understandable. “Don't worry,” Ling said, offering her a reassuring smile. He felt he owed her that much after his obvious prying. “I can't get caught by him either.”

She didn't return it and between them settled a cold awkwardness.

“I'll throw this out,” she said finally, grabbing the trays that still held the styrofoam containers of their finished snacks. Ling watched her maneuver her way through the maze of tables and chairs and dining guests, heading for the garbage bins at the edge of the court.

With a swiftness that matched the quickening pace of his heart, Ling grabbed Lan Fan's bag from the chair opposite him, careful to keep his eyes on her walking form, and he snatched the Red Stone from its home. He pulled the stopper from the top, and searched for some spare piece of cloth on himself. His sleeve? No, too obvious. The hem of his shirt? She might still be able to smell it. He looked up and found her pushing the contents of the tray down the mouth of the trash can, then placing the tray on the rack, and finally spinning gracefully to head back to him.

Grunting, Ling bent down and spilled a couple of drops on the garter of his left sock. He closed the bottle, and placed it back in the pocket where he found it. He stood up quickly, almost knocking his chair over, and waved the bag outwards to Lan Fan who was just coming into their little sector in the court.

“Come on, time to go,” he said, hoping that she would mistake his gesture as a sign of restlessness, rather than an act of covering up his nosiness. When she took her bag from him and slung it over her shoulders without eying him in that suspicious way of hers, he relaxed a little, hoping his nervousness was imperceptible.

They headed towards the parking lot where he left his car before they went to campus. Lan Fan insisted on carrying some of his books, flipping through one of it even as she expertly dodged fellow pedestrians.

“So...” she began, after they had crossed an intersection and she had stowed his accounting notebook inside the tote that hung on her arm. “I think it's my turn to play the 20 question game.”

“Alright, seems fair.”

“Do you know why your father does these things?”

“Things as in screw people over, and when they retaliate, throw a tantrum that gets those same people killed?”

“Well, yeah.”

Ling shook his head, not because he didn't know the reason, but because he did and found it completely insufficient to warrant his Dad's atrocious behaviour.

“Dad was knocked off the throne,” Ling explained simply. “He was supposed to inherit, you know? But when the Fifty Wives system was eliminated at the end of the Oblique Era, grandfather died before establishing the protocol to determine the next heir. The throne went up for grabs and– ”

“W-wait, wait!” Lan Fan exclaimed, putting a hand against his chest to stop him from walking. “ _Your_ grandfather is the Everlasting Jewel of the Orient?” It was the respectful moniker given to the last emperor of Xing; 'everlasting' was just an appeasing term to signify that he was to live on metaphorically, rather than to symbolize the end of Imperial Xing.

“Yes,” Ling nodded, shrugging his shoulders in nonchalance. “It doesn't mean anything anymore. I don't think it ever did, really, considering how many people can claim noble blood in that country.”

Lan Fan scoffed. “Doesn't matter to _you_ perhaps, but let me remind you that there were ten times the number of citizens with no noble blood to speak of, yet the top ten percent seemed to think that the entire country was theirs to do with as they pleased!”

“Which was why the empire fell,” Ling added, agreeing with her own source of frustration. “It wasn't meant to be sustainable forever. Plenty of traditions didn't survive the reform.” The Oblique Era had been a harsh, confusing fifty years to the Xingese people, as modernization bled through its political fixtures. His father was born in its midst. In his father's youth, the Fifty Wives system was still in place, and he had been named crown prince.

Until thanks to Everlasting Jewel of the Orient, the concubinage system collapsed and the lazy man fell in the embrace of the ancestors before setting up a new regulation.

“So you're a prince!” Lan Fan exclaimed, arm waving about, causing the tote of textbooks to windmill around her.

“There's no such thing anymore,” Ling insisted.

“Well you still have noble blood from your father,” she pushed.

“From both parents actually. Ma is the fourth daughter of the Yao chief.” He paused, “Chieftains are defunct now too. What do they call him now? Governing minister of the Yao province, I believe.”

His bodyguard stared at him, eyes wide with a melted blend of emotions; her stance seemed torn between bowing down or running away.

“Lan Fan, don't ever think I'm different from you.”

A large man rushed by, trying to make it across the next intersection before the lights went red, and in his haste, he collided against Lan Fan's shoulder and knocked her from her bewildered stupor.

“Watch it, cripple!” he yelled as he bounded across the crosswalk without checking for passing vehicles, which earned him a good, angry honk from a driver.

Ling's outrage came in an electrifying burst. “ _You_ watch it, you bastard!” Seething, he watched the man disappear down the next street.

“Forget him,” Lan Fan said, nodding her head towards the parking lot where they had left Ling's car. He tried to assess her emotion from her expression, but whatever she felt from being insulted, if she felt anything at all, did not show on her face. “So, your Dad... basically he's a bitter old man trying to make everyone as miserable as he is?”

“It's more than that, I think,” Ling said. “Many people experience losing things they want, and a lot of them grow up to be decent folks. I don't know... seems to me as if growing up in that kind of anarchical environment, having to be cutthroat from the moment you're born, does things to your head, you know what I mean?”

“So you don't think he's completely sane?”

Ling let out a chuckle. “Is anyone really?”

They approached his parked car, and he settled in the driver's seat, pulling the keys from his pants pocket. Lan Fan stowed the bag in the back seat, before going back to the passenger side to sit beside him. While he waited for her to get comfortable, he flipped through his email on his phone. He never liked having so many unread messages in his inbox; it made him feel disorganized, left behind. He almost bypassed Ed's message, subject titled with the hilarious epithet of 'Ugly Face'. Ed so loved to send him random messages that had about as much importance as a pair of swimming trunks in the summit of Mount Briggs, but it was a quirk he had become quite accustomed to. He clicked on it anyway, and was intrigued to find a link to an article.

_Arson at the Warehouse District_

Eh? Below the link, Ed wrote a one-word message: “Daddy-o?”

Ling followed the link to a news site, reading about the unfortunate and violent demise of a stock broker and his daughter.

“What's wrong?” Lan Fan asked beside him, probably wondering why he hadn't started driving yet.

“Somebody died,” Ling said, passing the phone to her so that she could read. She scanned his phone briefly, then looked at him.

“Well, that's some freak accident. But what does this have to do with anything?”

Ling's mind whirled; he asked himself the same question when he opened the article. “Ed thinks my father might have had something to do with it.”

“Oh... so what are we going to do about it?” she asked again, clearly confused.

Ling shook his head, and turned to her. “I don't think it's something we have to do. I think it's something we did. The man who was killed, Thomas Kady, I recognize his name. He appeared frequently in my research and my snooping as one of my father's business acquaintances. They had a falling out several weeks ago, when my father bought Kady's office in Tobha from under his nose. It's the one we went to actually. Kady felt as if my father ingratiated himself for the very purpose of taking ownership of the building.” The building was small, but it's a strategic place for people who didn't want to drive to the urban sprawl in the South.

His frowned deepened, trying to connect the dots given the things he knew. If Ed suspected that his father had something to do with their deaths, then that meant that his father was after something, or he was trying to eliminate something. Chu had a one track mind after all: win. Which he did already; the office was his, completely bought with his own money. Kady, on the other hand, was forced out.

“Lan Fan, I think father might have thought that Kady had something to do with the break-in.” Not only the one from the week prior, but perhaps also the one that Ling performed many weeks ago, very early on in his father's acquisition of the real estate. Given how paranoid his father was, he must have thought that the break ins would escalate to something more damaging to his business or his own personal welfare.

Ling gulped. A man in his prime and a six-year-old. His father didn't even hesitate to eliminate them. Ling started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, paying the toll on his way down the ramp. It was just a building, a collective lump of bricks, and two grown men had to fight over it. Ling didn't want to imagine what his father would do to a person who competed for something a little more valuable than sturdy walls with a nice view. He tried to ease his nerves, telling himself that at least his father didn't even for one moment suspect that his own son had anything to do with it.

“We're safe though,” he said, smiling a little at Lan Fan. “No getting caught this time around.”

“Ling, Kady's daughter was _six_ ,” Lan Fan said, piercing him with a cold glare that unearthed the emotion he kept at bay, and his heart lurched with the weight of guilt.

“I know,” he said. And he would do something. He'd talk to Winry, talk to Mustang. Contact the wife, whatever. But he couldn't consider his trips less than necessary when they produced clues that would help him. Nobody else in this damn country, this damn continent wanted to fight this vile excuse for a man. No, all of them would rather grovel and appease, because that was easier, wasn't it?

“Ling!”

Her cry brought his mind back to the road, and Ling managed to swerve in time to avoid a left turning truck. When they had eased into the highway, Ling took a calming breath, letting it out in a slow, steady whoosh.

No, what was important was that they didn't get caught. They couldn't afford to, not this early in the process. Two lives. No matter how expensive it seemed, more people would pay with their lives if Ling didn't do anything, if he failed yet again. And he wasn't going to, not this time. That was the best he could do.

-o-

The basement of the night club was a good a place as any to meet the rest of the crew. Apparently Colonel Mustang's mother owned the club, and some of his sisters worked the place. Lan Fan didn't get a very good look around the main floor, packed with people as it was. It was only midnight, the fun was usually at its height at this time. It would be a few more hours before the night club would close, which would give them enough time, hopefully, to sort everything out.

Ling wanted to have the final stage of the plan outlined in detail before they all greet tomorrow's sun. Aside from the difficulty of getting everyone together, Lan Fan was sure that the news of the Kady's death spurned him to impatience.

She sat down on a short stool, after helping her grandfather take a seat at the plushier sofa beside it. He said he was good enough to come, and Rosé didn't mind accompanying them. After their little trip to Tobha, Lan Fan had finally gotten hold of the girl she once met as a bodyguard. Rosé hadn't been her client, just a friend of someone else Lan Fan had guarded. Only a couple of years older than her, Rosé utilized Auto-Mail occasionally to help pay for fees on her way to becoming a registered nurse. It was quite a surprise when she'd shown up on Ling's doorstep, recognizing the boy immediately as a friend of Ed's. Apparently she'd met the Elric brothers some years before.

Lan Fan guessed that it was all for the best. At least she didn't have to fear about involving Rosé in the operation. She seemed to be even more well acquainted with everyone else than Lan Fan was.

In any case, her grandfather was curious about The Big Plan, as he liked to call it, and wouldn't want to miss a single detail. Lan Fan had a feeling that he suspected she might keep something from him. Considering how disastrous the last time she hadn't told him something about her job, she was willing to relay as much information as she could, given of course that Ling would tell her everything. Lately, she had a notion that Ling was feeling a little suspicious of her, and sometimes she wondered as well if he had a reason not to. She hadn't exactly been forthcoming with many things, and at the end of the day, her loyalty was to her family, not employer.

To her right, Yuna Yao lay with her legs outstretched on a longer futon grabbed from one of the rooms upstairs. If Lan Fan has seen her like this only a few days ago, she wouldn't know how Yuna could make a baggy sweater and a matching pair of sweatpants look formal and elegant; as it was, being the fourth daughter of a man who was once a Clan Chief probably had something to do with it. On her lap was a tablet, where she was typing furiously. Yuna winked at her when she saw Lan Fan watching. Lan Fan blushed, and looked away, waiting for the others to come.

Slowly they trickled in. Ling came with Edward to his left trailed by a blonde girl, all three of them carrying trays of drinks and confectionery. Lan Fan had to admit that Ling had been quieter and less spontaneous after receiving the news of Kady's death – and knowing what it meant for the both himself and her – but tonight he wore a bright smile as he escorted his friends toward their meeting area. Setting the trays down on the tables to the side, he waved her over excitedly.

“I believe you've never met Winry Rockbell yet, have you?” he asked.

Lan Fan's head snapped to the pretty girl standing close to Ed. Though very young, Winry Rockbell was infamous throughout all of Auto-Mail as the best, most efficient admin, having a track record of 94% successful matches. It was impeccable considering most black market matches were either a hit or a miss. Some said that she came from a long line of covert informants.

“Hello, Lan Fan!” Winry chirped, giving her an excited smile. She extended a hand, and Lan Fan tentatively shook it, unsure what to say to someone who was part of the reason she and her grandfather were able to get by the last few years.

“Nice to meet you,” was all she could muster at first. Then with a nervous chuckle, she gripped Winry's hand eagerly. “Thank you for helping run Auto-Mail. You don't know how many times it has saved my life. And my grandfather.”

Winry's grinned widened, “I'm very humbled to hear that. I'll have you know that it's also a great pleasure on my part to finally meet you. There's a lot of rave about you.”

“Rave?” Lan Fan stilled. Did someone speak against her? Had she disappointed a client? How many people knew about her and her Grandpa, knew her whereabouts now?

“Don't look so frightened! The talk's nothing bad,” Winry reassured her, patting her shoulder. “You just left a trail of five star recs the moment you appeared in the Auto-Mail databases some years ago.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I'm surprised that you haven't requested placing your name in our admin newsletters. You know, more people would ask for your services if they knew it was available. You're doing pretty well in terms of word of mouth from your previous clients, but requests would probably multiply if we announce it continuously.”

“Ah, no that's okay,” Lan Fan said. Bodyguarding was a tricky job to handle. It was true that perhaps for someone doing business she should market herself as much as possible, but she knew that a lot of people who would require her services weren't people she would gladly provide protection for, people that might even be a threat to her if she'd protected a rival or if she refused to do what they wanted. She knew the type personally. If more people knew her, it was just as likely that she would attract such customers, and really, at this point she'd be content if she took home girls from clubs to their affluent houses for the next few years. “I like things the way they are now.”

“Well whatever floats your boat,” Winry nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”

The door to the basement opened up, letting in a blast of loud pop music. Lan Fan looked up to see a dark-haired man in an ironed white dress shirt tucked neatly into his pants. He was well built, taller and a little stockier than Ling. Behind him, a woman walked down the stairs in sync with his steps.

Beside Winry, Edward expelled a low groan at the sight of the pair even as more men came in.

“Shush Ed, control yourself!” Winry whispered in a reprimanding tone, and took his arm around her own, pulling him in the direction of the chairs. Lan Fan stared after them, wondering at the way Edward tensed when she placed her head on his shoulder.

Ling leaned in, and whispered at her ear. “They too are sort of an item.”

“Too?” Lan Fan raised an eyebrow. “Along with your sister and Ed's brother, huh? Anyone else?”

Ling smirked playfully, and sent a small nod towards the stairs and the pair who had just descended onto the landing.

“Really? But they're in the State Military.”

Ling smiled widely and suggestively at her. She felt her cheeks burn with the rush of blood, then when a prickling sensation tickled the back of her neck, she realized that she and Ling had also earned the curious gaze of her grandfather. She stepped away, and looked instead at the approaching guests.

“Nah, just joking,” Ling said before stretching his hand out towards the well-dressed man. “Colonel Mustang, it's been a while.”

“Yes, well... one can never take many breaks if one has to climb the ladder,” Mustang said with an undertone of exasperation, though Lan Fan noticed that the woman behind him gave him a look of disbelief and a disapproving shake of the head.

“Hey!” Lan Fan exclaimed, when she finally saw the woman's face in full view. “You're the lady from that night!” Strange that on the rare occasion she ran about in the city half dead, her mind still had the impudence to record even the minutest details. The lady didn't look that much different, perhaps a little less ragged and sweaty tonight. But she could probably say the same thing about Lan Fan herself.

The older woman looked at her face, eyes sharp, then took one glance at Lan Fan's left shoulder before gasping in recognition. “You! Wait, how did you... where were you...”

“You know her?” Mustang asked, turning to his comrade. Ling once mentioned her name before, Lan Fan remembered. Hawk... Hawk something?

“She was the girl Ling asked me to help two years ago during the first Operation Greed,” she explained. Then turning back to the Xingese girl, she stretched out a hand. “Riza Hawkeye. I don't think we ever got a chance to be properly introduced. By the time I came back to check on you at the hospital you were gone.” She ended on a factual note, but Lan Fan could tell that it was a perfectly articulated question without having asked it.

“Yes, I... yes, I was gone,” was all Lan Fan could say in return, because she knew these State militants were probably well trained in the sensitive art of lie detection. Ling filled in the awkward silence that followed – no doubt already used to the ones she forced him to suffer through – by indicating the drinks and snacks at the table beside them.

“Lan Fan here is helping me out with the new Operation,” Ling explained. “She's watching my back.”

“Good,” Mustang stated, flashing Lan Fan with a smile so charming he could battle Ling in the department. “The next time he faints, he won't dirty his shirt.”

Lan Fan chuckled, feeling a bit of the tension seep out from her.

After waiting for several more people to arrive, she settled back down on the stool by her grandfather and watched as Ling took to the center of the meeting area to begin. He motioned for Winry to come up, and in her hand she held a brown folder. Ling cleared his throat and everyone quieted down from their separate conversations.

“Winry and Edward made a trip to XYZ Ltd. last week to negotiate a deal with my father,” he began, and motioned for Winry to continue.

“Ed and I were able to seal a deal of four million sens,” she began, opening the folder and bringing out a piece of document. “In return, Henry Chu requires a weekly meeting with me and Ed in which we are liable to answer all of his questions regarding Auto-Mail.”

It wasn't news to Lan Fan who had heard about it several days earlier from Ling after Edward phoned in the results, but she heard gasps emanate from half of the group.

“How many Auto-Mailers know that you accepted this deal?” Colonel Mustang asked, leaning against the table of sweets and pocketing his hands.

Winry shrugged, “I've told all of the Auto-Mail admins all over the country. They're the only ones who really need to know. As for our clients... well, it's hard to say who our clients even are. We get new people every day, others drop out to never be heard from again after one request, and some crop up every now and then. It's almost next to impossible to figure out who among them we should provide the news to. I was actually hoping that once we've figured out what we're going to do, then perhaps I could contact some of them specifically for help, but at this point... I don't see why we should spread the news. Especially when we run the risk of actually informing one of Chu's own men. Even successful businessmen make use of the black markets every now and then.”

“I don't think many of your clients would like the idea of their information leaking out to someone like Chu,” Mustang added.

“It's the black market!” Ed barked. “If they were worried about something like privacy, they should have never come to the biggest underground info hub in the entire country.”

“Besides, if we're quick about this plan of yours, Winry wouldn't have to maintain the meetings for very long,” grumbled an old man tucked away into the corner. His graying hair was shorn short, and beside him sat a thin, gangly young man with large plastic-framed spectacles sitting comfortably on the bridge of his nose.

Lan Fan felt Yuna shift from her spot. The woman leaned down to her and said, “Those are the LeCoultes. The old one is Dominic, and his son is Ridel. Consider them that IT backbone of Auto-Mail. Without them, we'd still be working with snail mail and pigeons.” Lan Fan nodded, then turned her attention back to Winry.

“...and I will be hanging on to the contract until we have figured out how we want the Colonel and his team to stumble upon it by 'accident'.”

“And the money?” Yuna piped up beside Lan Fan.

Edward pulled on a black strap from beneath the couch he was sitting on, and out he dragged a large traveling suitcase. “Here. Four million sens entirely in cash.” Lan Fan eyed the bag wondering how four million sens could fit in such a small space, then tried to suppress the shudder brought by the not-so-distant memory of herself last holding a bag filled with so much money. Or so she had thought.

She shook her head, and instead focused on the two other occupants of the couch, a taller man with hair of the same shade of gold as Ed's. His facial features were so similar to Edward now that she really looked carefully, but the first time he came into the room, his gentle disposition hadn't given her a reason to associate him with the ill-tempered boy. Beside him, writing furiously in a packed notebook was a Xingese girl with long braided hair slung over one shoulder.

“Mei?” she whispered to Yuna, giving a soft nod to the girl on the couch.

Yuna smiled and nodded excitedly. “You two should get to know each other! I bet you have much in common.”

Lan Fan didn't think so, so she put it out of her head. She doubted there would be any opportunity for her to hang out with the girl anyway, unless Ling was the type to hang out with his little siblings. She didn't think so either.

“Here is what I propose,” Ling said. “Finding the contract and the money right off the bat would be the biggest alarm we want to avoid ringing. Not that I don't believe the Colonel could do it in a real investigation, but it's too much of a lucky coincidence to not raise anyone's suspicion. So, I think we should first have an encounter between the Colonel's team and a group of Auto-Mailers. This group would get away cleanly, which would show that they had sufficient preparation to evade your venture.”

“I would suggest two encounters,” Mustang said. “And if possible, perhaps my team and I don't find the contract and money directly, but are tipped off by some Auto-Mailers themselves.”

“That would make sense,” Winry assented. “There isn't always a lot of loyalty in the black markets.”

Lan Fan listened as Ling, Mustang, Edward and Winry worked out the details of the plan, occasionally punctuated by suggestions from Edward's brother or from Hawkeye. Ling had pinned up a large construction paper on the wall, and scribbled studiously as the ideas came flying his way. She wondered if he expected anyone else to understand his notes, as after only several minutes of brainstorming, it looked like an amalgamation of a theorist's flow chart and an ancient Xingese cookbook, written in the penmanship of a five-year-old. Then she wondered if that perhaps was the point. With Ling, she might never know.

There would be three hoaxes overall; the first two would be pseudo investigations resulting in carefully crafted series of clues. The first would involve infiltrating the business sector of Rush Valley where many people were involved in the black markets to make quick bucks. One of Auto-Mail's warehouses, home to some fifty servers, was located in the heart of the sector. Auto-Mail would relocate all the servers, but would leave behind sufficient personal trails like shoe tracks and fingerprints in their haste. They couldn't appear to be spotlessly prepared, since they had recently just borrowed the money. These clues would also lead to the second hoax, which would require the Colonel and his men to sniff out the individuals indicated from the first one. Riza suggested that this second investigation be a complete failure on their part, which would hopefully imply that Auto-Mail was milking Chu's money for all its worth, and getting the results they wanted because of him.

And the third would appear to be a combination of luck and progress. They would pick an Auto-Mailer to volunteer as a tattler whom Colonel Mustang would arrest. The tattler would then reveal what he or she supposedly knew of Auto-Mail, as well as how they had been able to evade all of the investigative advances. Included in this confession would be the location of the greatly reduced four million sens and the original copy of the contract signed by Chu.

“By next week, you should send me the names and the contact information of all the Auto-Mail volunteers who would be involved in the operation,” replied a man with silvery hair, yet who didn't look to be very old. Yuna whispered that his name was Vato Falman, and that he had a memory that could rival a computer's.

Alphonse took the responsibility to collect all of that to free up some time from Winry. Looking around, Ling eyed each of them, encouraging people to add notes to his already webby diagram. When his eyes locked onto Lan Fan's, she shook her head, but he sent her a disbelieving smile, and she hated him the exact moment when he put on her on the spot, asking her what she thought.

Everyone turned to her, and their gazes aroused an itchy feeling of wanting to curl up behind something opaque. She scowled at Ling, but figured she might as well ask what many of them were probably afraid to, or haven't thought deeply about yet.

“What happens after?” she said. “I mean, I don't see anyone who would willingly volunteer to be arrested for conspiring with the black markets. And I'm still worried about Auto-Mail. It's true that we might get Chu successfully framed, but wouldn't the government still push to have it dissolved?”

“It would be easy enough to bail the Tattler,” Ling replied, and Lan Fan saw the Colonel nod along with him.

“As for what happens afterward, that would highly depend on our next orders,” Mustang added. “You are right that the investigation would not stop there, and though the government may be sidelined by more important things, purging the black markets is one of the goals they have in the years to come. I can't say for sure what we need to do after Chu is hopefully behind bars. They told us to investigate, and we'd give them this saucy discovery, but after that it's better to keep our minds open and not assume anything.”

Lan Fan nodded solemnly, wondering not for the first time in the weeks since she had become a member of the operation, what she would do after everything was over. While Ling's generous offer of a million sens would keep her and her grandfather alive for some time, it was almost as if she didn't know what life would be like without Auto-Mail.

“Anything else?” Ling asked her.

“Yeah... uh, what exactly is my role in this entire operation?” Lan Fan asked reluctantly, hoping that she didn't sound too clueless; everyone else seemed to know what they were intended to do, even without anyone mentioning it. People like Winry, of course, had specific jobs that nobody else could carry out, so theirs were a given.

“You would help move the servers, and help guard the fake culprits. Auto-Mail databases are highly coveted, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if a pack of wolves come barging in while we're on the move.”

Ah, she hadn't considered that angle. Feeling a small ember of pride, she sat up a little straighter, knowing that she wouldn't be shoved to the sidelines. After all, in the last few weeks the only thing Ling did that was worth bodyguarding was his little stunt at Tobha. She kept her attention trained on her periphery whenever they went out to school or the mall or wherever else Ling wanted to drag her, but so far as she could tell there were no boogey men hounding them like vultures. There were no boogey men at all.

Unless...

Unless the whole 24/7 bodyguard job description wasn't exactly for his physical protection from _someone else_. Perhaps it wasn't even for physical protection directly. Maybe what it really was, was insurance.

His words that first time – er, _second_ time they met – rang in her head. He had refused to tell her about Operation Greed 1.0 until she took the job, because the entire operation had been confidential. And so was this new one.

Lan Fan blinked. Well... how dimwitted she was to realize this so belatedly. He was keeping her in a leash, because he was afraid _she_ would go off revealing his plans, intentionally or not, to someone else. Yes, it was bodyguarding in a twisted sense – Ling was protecting himself from the chance of being betrayed.

She looked at him, smiling and downing pieces of pastry as he began to wave their team members goodbye. Part of her reveled that this was the best hostage situation anyone could wish for – free food, free house, free clothes, school, five-star hotel treatment, and medical attention for her grandfather. Another part of her sulked, confused at why this new realization about her situation disappointed her much more than it should have.

-o-

Ling snatched Mei off the sidewalk as she was about to make her way to the waiting cab in front of the club entrance. It wasn't like he was trying to be extremely stealthy, so when Alphonse exclaimed at his alarming behaviour and decided to follow them, Ling let him. He'd be helpful too. There was only one person he didn't want around, and he'd since told Lan Fan he'd be off annoying his little sister. He made sure his mother was occupying her attention for now, introducing her to the other people involved in their little game, but he knew that she had eyes sharp enough to rival the Lieutenant's.

“No hi or hello? What, did they go out of fashion or something?” Mei asked as she thrashed in Ling's arms. “If kidnapping is what you're planning, you might want to cover my mouth. Or, you know, not leave any witnesses,” she gave a pointed stare at Alphonse who was jogging right along beside Ling.

“I'm not trying to kidnap you,” Ling said. “I'm trying to enlist your help with something.”

“Oh right, how stupid am I not to have realized that the best way to ask for help is to grab someone and run away in the most suspicious way possible?”

“Yeah Ling,” Alphonse said. “Mei is right. What exactly are you up to?”

Ling finally stopped a block away from the club. He released his hold on his sister, flinching away just in time before one of her flailing hands smacked him in the face.

“Whatever it is, would you make it quick?” Mei said, impatience lining her tone. “I left Xiao Mei alone at home. I want to be back as soon as possible.”

“Lan Fan's grandfather is sick,” Ling began, fumbling with the contents of his pocket. The irritation on Mei's face eased away a little. He knew that Mei held an incurable interest in medicine, which was why she was the first on his list to ask about the ever elusive truth behind the Red Stone. That, and sure, even he had to admit that for all her feistiness, Mei had a caring heart deep, deep... way deep down in her chest. Somewhere. She couldn't be all that heartless, especially when it came to sick people.

“Lan Fan said she didn't know what it is that is making him sick,” he continued.

“She didn't go to a doctor?” Mei asked incredulously.

“She probably did, because she got some prescribed medication for him. But here's where the weirdness starts. She pays five thousand sens for every bottle of the medicine, which lasts about a month.”

“Five _thousand_?” Mei gasped, Alphonse in sync with her.

“Yeah. She says that there is only one person who can provide her with this medicine, and that as far as she knows, she cannot get it anywhere else.”

His little sister snorted, eyes narrowing in wariness. Ling nodded to indicate that he thought the same.

“Let me get this straight. She doesn't know what illness her grandfather had succumbed to, yet a doctor had prescribed her some medicine that she can only get from one source...” Mei said. “What are the chances that the doctor she'd gone to knew exactly that this medicine would be the fix to a nameless disease if the cure is so rare?”

“Exactly, right? That's why I'm hoping you and Alphonse could look into it for me.” He pulled out the sock from his pocket bearing the few drops of Red Stone. Mei let out a shriek, shying away from the sock as it dangled between them like a dead rat.

“Is that a sock?” she squeaked. “Why are you waving a _used_ sock in my face?”

“Calm down, Mei! Gee... now look here. See this red spot? That's the medicine Lan Fan uses.”

“Why is it on your sock?” Mei grimaced with the full onslaught of disgust, as if Ling had had the audacity to throw his cookies at her feet.

“I was in a hurry! It was the only place I could think of that she wouldn't notice. Now I hope this is enough for you, because poor Grandpa Fu might just lose his life if I grab more of the medicine.”

“I'm not touching that thing!”

“Here,” Alphonse spoke up, pulling an army knife from the bag he carried. “Ling, snip that piece off, and we can carry it to the lab next week.”

“What do you expect us to find?” Mei asked, watching Ling hack the top portion of the sock's garter.

“Whatever you can that might indicate where this comes from,” Ling replied, finishing off his task and handing the implement back to Alphonse. “A rare chemical that comes from very few places, or some interesting mixture of ingredients. We can start with that, and investigate who buys those ingredients together.”

“Why are you interested in this?” Alphonse asked.

Mei answered before Ling could. “Well if the bodyguard I hired can't even tell what's wrong with her grandfather, I'd be a little worried about my personal welfare too.” She rolled her eyes at Ling, indicating just how silly she thought he was for hiring Lan Fan. “Why don't you just get rid of her?”

“She just spent three hours in a meeting that detailed a potentially treasonous endeavour on behalf of the State Military, and met the most important authorities in Auto-Mail,” Ling replied. “There is no way I can get rid of her now.”

“Is that really so?” Mei batted her eyelashes at him coyly.

“Mei, stop it. You've been reading too many romance novels.”

She smiled triumphantly as if he'd just confirmed something he wasn't aware of. “Whatever. Al and I would look this up, and tell you whatever we find. Until then, that would be twenty-five sens an hour.”

-o-

Saturday came, and Ed was looking forward to it about as much as he looked forward to eating lemmings.

The room Chu led them to was paneled in dark wood, bare except for three single plush couches in the middle. On the far wall was a large translucent glass window, overlooking not the narrow alley that Edward expected to see, but an adjacent room. It was slightly larger than the one they were in, populated with various equipment.

“Sit down,” Chu said waving at the seats in the room. “Can I get you anything? Wine? Soft drinks?”

Ed frowned in distaste, knowing full well that all the niceties were misleading displays, and that no, this wasn't going to be a benign interview with a friendly conversation over biscuits and tea.

The door opened, and a man came in bearing a tray with biscuits and tea.

Eh... well, at least Edward was still sure as hell that this wasn't going to be a nice interview. Actually, the food and drinks were making him think that Chu would be more brutal with his questioning. It would be like eating a savoury stew, only to find out that there was milk in it. He scowled even more, earning himself a questioning look from Winry.

“Well, suit yourselves. You two will be here for the next two hours, and it's really not my intention to babysit you,” Chu added, as he plucked a few slices of crackers from the platter on the tray. “We'll start off with you, young lady. When did you start working for Auto-Mail?”

“When I was eleven,” Winry replied, shifting in her seat, looking as if she couldn't be comfortable enough. Ed couldn't blame her.

“And how did you come by it?”

“A friend told me about it.”

“Friend?” the older man quirked an eyebrow at this. “And why did you join? What were you, a mere eleven year old, hoping to accomplish by joining an underground network?”

“I... I wanted to help people.”

A smile crawled across the Xingese man's face, one so carefully crafted that even Ed had a difficult time trying to determine if he was genuinely amused, or if it was a facade for something more troubling.

“Help people? That's very altruistic of you. When I was eleven years old, I was grappling for a piece of metal to wear on my head, if you get my drift. But I must admit that you, being the nice and thoughtful girl you are, would be making this entire ordeal very easy.”

“...ordeal?”

In front of them, through the tinted windows across the room, the door opened up in the adjacent quarters, and a bruised, disheveled man stumbled inside, followed by two men and a woman. They pushed him roughly, and he slipped on the tiled floors, landing on his head roughly. Through the window, Ed could hear his groans and the shouted orders of the people who brought him inside. For his part, the struggling man paid those in Ed's room no heed.

“He can't see us,” whispered Winry to him, and he finally realized that the glass must be a one-sided mirror of some sort. A heavy feeling dawned on him.

“What is this, Chu? What are you doing?” Ed snarled, eyes not leaving the scene in the room opposite theirs.

“Accommodating your tastes,” Chu shrugged. “Winry mentions how much she loves helping others, so why don't I give her the opportunity to help someone out today?”

Ed's eyes widened when he saw the woman place a cloth bag over the injured man's head, and the other two men tied him with cords on a lone wooden chair.

“What's going on?” Ed yelled, standing up, sweat moistening his palms. His heart hammered in his chest, and even though he wasn't the one tied to a chair, claustrophobia roiled from within him, sickened as he was by the close proximity of the walls surrounding him. “Who is this? What does he have to do with us?”

“Nothing,” Chu simpered, completely unphased. “At least nothing as of yet. He's a disgruntled old employee, who didn't go quietly even though I'd pardoned his disastrous failure that caused me thousands. Now,” he turned to Winry again, charming smile plastered on his face once again. “What were you saying again, young lady? That's right, you were telling me all about how you discovered Auto-Mail through this friend of yours. What was his or her name?”

“I...” Winry stuttered, attention half locked on the ominous position of Chu's old dog. “I... don't remember. It was a long time ago. I...”

She recoiled in shock, when the man's chair was tipped back, and his covered head was submerged in a continuous downpour of water as one of his tormentors held a gallon jug above him.

“What the hell?” Edward rushed to the window, disregarding Chu's blocking presence in his path. He could have crushed the man's toes in his hurried steps, but for all its worth, he would have cared more about a flattened snail. “You're going to drown him!”

“Oh, _I_ won't,” Chu stated a matter-of-factly. “How can I when I'm all the way over here?”

“Stop it!” Winry shouted. “Why are you doing this now?”

Ed turned around just in time to see Chu lean on his chair, eyes studying Winry's distraught expression closely. “You see, Ms. Rockbell, you have a chance to help this poor tool today. All you have to do is say the truth. That's it. It's _that_ simple. Your honesty in exchange for this man's well-being. You think that's a fair trade?”

Winry blanched.

“You're not the only one with gigabyte sized connections, Rockbell. I have ways of finding things out. You're here to make it easy for me, but don't think for one second that you can feed me unfiltered lies.”

A smoky silence blanketed the three of them when Chu sat back in his chair, crossed his legs and waited for his clients to let his thinly veiled threat sink in. The tips of Ed's fingers tingled with an angry coldness. Within two short steps, he'd closed the space between the window and Chu's chair, delivering him a punch so savage that Ed actually felt something crack beneath his knuckles. The man tumbled backwards over the arm of his chair, falling to the ground with a hand on his face, but quickly rolling back to his feet. He stood straight, staring at Ed as if he'd just been pinched by an ant. When he moved his hand away, blood trickled from his nose and dripped down to stain the white dress shirt beneath the suit hugging his body.

A blood-curling scream tore through the air, and Ed spun to watch blood splatter the window behind him; his eyes blurred with fury so raw that he didn't even see what they were doing on the other side anymore. All he saw was the dark red drops, trailing a chilling path down the glass.

“Stop it!” he heard Winry yell behind him. “Don't kill him! I'll tell the truth!”

“Winry, shut up!” Ed yelled back. The last thing he wanted was for either of them to get to their knees and appease this rotten bastard. There was no way. No way he'd flatter him with one more word.

“Oh, he's not dead yet,” Chu said, his voice muffled by the handkerchief he was using to staunch his own bleeding. “That would defeat the whole thing. I apologize though, I must not have been clear earlier. I will add that in addition to your truthful answers, it would also be in the best interest of this man that you two be in your best behaviour.”

Ed heard the unspoken message clearly; they were being watched. Any move they make, anything they say that Chu could consider offensive, orders would be given to hurt the hostage.

“You think you're going to get away with this?” Ed asked. His heart felt like catapulting out of his chest, so charged he was with adrenaline.

“Think?” Chu asked, wiping his bloody nose with the handkerchief. “Who's going to come and get me? The State Military? And how would you two look as you confess how you came to be in this room, how you've signed a deal with me, how you're using the funds I gave you? No, the question is, how are _you_ going to get away with this?”

There were plenty of ways, Ed thought to himself. Unfortunately all of them involved revealing their association with a small echelon of the State Military. Though the scales were tipped unevenly, the Colonel and his team were good acquaintances, and they didn't deserve to be branded as traitors to their country, not when what they were doing would actually make things better in Amestris.

Winry yielded. “My grandmother introduced me to Auto-Mail. At first, she suggested that I just work on the easy stuff, forwarding mails and organizing requests. I never made matches then. I was never introduced to many of the underground workers until much later.”

Winry answered the next questions in much the same way. Ed remained by the window, seething with angry impatience. At least she attempted brevity, but Chu knew what questions to ask and how to corner her into revealing what he wanted to know. What were the names of her co-admins in South Area? What was the most recent request she received concerning the government? Why doesn't Auto-Mail accept requests for assassination or robbery when it's completely within their guidelines to reveal a person's address? That would defeat the point, wouldn't it?

By the time their two hours were up, Ed's head was a turmoil of irritation and fear. Winry had been forced to provide the names of some of her clients and network members. Now the responsibility to protect these people would fall on his hands. He needed to call the Colonel immediately. Ling too. The brat didn't need that girl of his as much as he pretended to anyway. Perhaps _she_ wouldn't mind guarding a few more people. What happened to that man back in the room was bad enough. Now there were potentially a dozen more lives on the line because of what they said today.

And it was only the first meeting. Damn it.

Winry was quiet on their trip back home. He could tell, by the way her shoulders tensed by her sides, the way she bit her lip and blinked her eyes a little too frequently, that she was trying not to cry. Damn her too.

He stopped the car, parking it on the side of a street. He didn't say anything, but just waited. After a few minutes, Winry buried her head in her hands, leaned against the dashboard of the car, and sobbed. He didn't say anything. He got angry and she cried. That was how it had always been with them. And like his temper, her tears flowed and left. That was all. At least her crying never made things worse. He on the other hand...

“I'm sorry,” she sniffed, pulling back from her position. She wiped her eyes, and drew a deep breath.

“No, Win. _I'm_ sorry,” he said, and truly he was. “Ling warned us.” He'd expected that the questions were going to be difficult, that they might place themselves in a tight spot, torn between their deal and their allegiances, but Ed never thought things would be that bad.

“I felt like I was in a pressure cooker,” Winry whispered.

Ed looked at her, reaching out to pull aside a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “You look quite well for someone who'd just been steamed quite thoroughly.”

She laughed a little, then sniffed and shook her head. “Wow, and to think I'd had to be cooked to hear a little sweetness from you.”

He shrugged.

“What are we going to do? This would happen all over again next week.”

He was thinking the same thing. Even if they gave up their part of the operation, it wasn't like they could appear on Chu's doorsteps next week with the four million sens, tell him that nevermind, Auto-Mail had decided not to do anything about the government investigation after all. Even if they could withdraw, they would have to do it smoothly, and doing a one-eighty within the span of seven days was the opposite of that.

From his pocket, he pulled his phone and dialed the number that redirected to Ling's encrypted line.

“Hello?” a soft, low tone answered after a couple of rings. A tone that could never sound like Ling even if he'd been attacked by three different cases of the flu.

“H-hello? Is this Lan Fan?”

“Yeah.”

“Get me Ling!” Ed barked. Where was that shifty-eyed imp when he needed him?

“He's taking a shower.”

“Okay, when he gets out tell him to call me back immediately. We might need to start the operation sooner than we planned.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Here's a Fun Fact. When this story was but a wee seed of an idea, Henry Chu's business was supposed to be an online matchmaker. However, it was corrupted by wealthy clients who didn't use it for honest purposes, but bribed Chu to match them up with a person they'd like to date, even if they weren't compatible. Ling thought he was going to expose this by signing up himself, except that he got paired up with Lan Fan. Lan Fan on the other hand is a Psychology student who was researching on the dubious ways of online dating. So, well, the irony is that both Ling and Lan Fan are trying to prove how the whole thing can't possibly work, but ended up falling in love, which sorta screwed their external goals.
> 
> So yeah. It was more of a romcom. Now, instead, you have psycho-Chu and a more angsty Lan Fan with dark secrets.

The first hoax was scheduled on the last Friday of the month. Timed at just a little over midnight, it was a chilly foray into darkness as they all cluttered around one of Auto-Mail's datacentre in the business sector of Rush Valley. Even at night, the area wasn't asleep. Street lamps burned bright with white light – not yellow like in the suburbs – and there were buildings still alive with the bustle of night-shifters. It was good, Ling assured himself. They would have been much more conspicuous in an abandoned maze of alleyways, driving car loads of hard drives and servers.

This datacentre was small compared to the other centres Auto-Mail used, and thus it was the safest one they could sacrifice as the point of investigation. It was also the only one they could move in a single night. Ling stood inside the room where people were busy packing up, and tried not to imagine what the other centres looked like as he viewed the tangled mess of cables hooking the machines together. He watched as old man LeCoulte and several other of Auto-Mail's tech support were finishing the backups and reformatting.

Ling leaned against one wall, trying to keep out of their way. Lan Fan was standing beside him, eying the process with an interested glint in her eye.

“I don't suppose you know anything about server migration, do you?” he asked her. “Because I can certainly use a couple of tips.”

“I have no idea,” Lan Fan admitted. “But I'd like to.”

Winry came in, bearing an empty box for the hard drives containing the backed-up data. “I don't know much myself,” she jumped in. “All I know is that we have to get these back-ups downstairs and loaded in the cars soon. Ed needs to know which cars will hold the real stuff, and which ones will carry the decoy so he can assign the proper routes to Metso.”

“Speaking of decoys, do we know of anyone planning to ambush us tonight?” Lan Fan piped up. She was dressed in simple gear, a tucked in shirt doubled by a well-fitting sweater. No hood. Nothing that anyone could potentially grab. Her hair was tied in its usual bun though it looked neater, and Ling knew that his mother probably had a hand in it. So to speak.

“We've heard rumours that The Jesters have gained knowledge of our endeavour tonight,” Winry said. The Jesters referred to a loose band of black market entrepreneurs, reputed to piggy-back on other underground networks through larceny and espionage. “I don't know if they'll show up though.”

“Anyone else?”

Winry shrugged. “I hope not,” she stated. “Jean Havoc called and said that the Colonel made sure that no other State Military officers would be randomly roaming our path to Metso, so at least we don't have to worry about prematurely running into them. Colonel and his team would be the only ones deployed down here tomorrow morning so hopefully, this would go as smoothly as possible.”

As much as Ling hoped the same thing, he doubted that that wish would be granted at all. Auto-Mail data was very valuable. Even if they did not run into officers, he was sure there would be people other than the Jesters trying their luck tonight.

When Winry exited the room carrying her load, Ling followed her to the hallway.

“Winry!” he called, and she stopped before descending the stairs. She looked fine now, with her hair tied back neatly in a ponytail that matched Ed's. Her blue eyes were bright with apprehension and wit, but it was only a few days ago when she and Ed crashed his home in as haggard a state as he'd seen either of them.

He remembered listening in silent horror as they related what happened during their meeting with Chu. Lan Fan could barely contain herself in outrage, before fleeing from the room minutes only after their story began.

“Are you alright now?” he asked.

Her features softened with a smile. “I am, thank you for asking.”

Ling nodded, knowing full well that Winry was sturdier than she seemed, and that she was in good hands. There would be many people – many, _many_ people – whose wrath would claim the world ten times over if anything bad happened to Winry, not the least of them was Ed. Ling included.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean for things to get out of hand so quickly.” He had known the kind of tactics his father resorted to, had warned both their military and black market teams that Chu was a serpent incarnate. Still, he bore the responsibility for whatever trouble they might face. Operation Greed was _his_ brainchild. To abandon his friends to the consequences of his not-so-bright ideas smelled a lot like a Chu, not a Yao.

“You haven't stopped apologizing since we came back last Saturday,” Winry said, half grinning. “Ling, cut yourself some slack, won't you?” With that, she headed down the stairs.

Ling was surprised when he turned around and found Lan Fan standing beside him, frowning at the spot Winry had occupied at the top of the stairs. She hadn't talked to him as often after their planning session the week before, but considering that she wasn't the talkative type in the first place, he tried not to let it bother him. Though he highly suspected that it was probably because she felt uncomfortable with all his prying.

Not that it helped _him_ any; last time he checked with Mei and Alphonse, they haven't gotten around to studying the small sample of Red Stone he gave them. The truth was that he wasn't close to discovering anything even remotely significant.

“Hey,” he said. “She'll be okay, I think.”

Lan Fan looked at him, eyes shadowed by doubt and concern. “I hope so. Your father is usually much more trouble that he seems at first.”

Ling nodded, knowing that if what she said wasn't ture, there wouldn't be an Operation Greed 2.0 at all. He hooked his arm lightly with hers, and led her down and out of the building.

After a couple more hours of waiting for everything to be packed and loaded, Ling boarded one of the cars on the driver's seat. Beside him sat Lan Fan, and in the backseat was the only other occupant of the car. He was Hunter Manos, a volunteer Winry found from their pool of vise-admins who would be willing to help out on both parts of the operation. With very little to lose, he was one of the people elected to leave behind personal marks on the scene, and lead Mustang's team on a chase in the next hoax. Before entering the car, Ling noticed that Manos purposefully left behind an empty beer bottle by the driveway, as if someone in a hurry might have forgotten it there.

He only seemed a few years older than Ling, but looking at his calloused hands and hardened features, Manos seemed accustomed to the hardened life of the South City backstreets. With a quick, easy smile and a way with words, he exuded an air of mischief. Especially with the way he hadn't stopped staring at Lan Fan since he first saw her.

“Winry said if all goes well tonight, I will be appointed Official Tattler,” he was saying as Ling began the half-hour long drive to Metso.

“Don't be too excited,” Ling warned. “Being the Tattler would take a lot more work than what we're going to do tonight. You're going to be interviewed by officers not involved in the operation, officers who, shall we say, don't have very much patience towards those who partake in the black markets.”

“Oh I've interacted with that kind plenty of times,” Manos revealed. “If that's what you're worried about, I suggest you don't.”

Once they wove their way out of the cluttered city of Rush Valley, browning fields of grass replaced well-used pavements on the side of the roads. For a while, the ride was uneventful, with Lan Fan leaning against the window watching the scene pass by, Manos in the back seat humming to whatever was on his player. There were several other vehicles on the road, which eased Ling.

It was only when they have rounded the ramp of the exit nearest to Metso that the roads cleared of other cars and the intervals between lights widened. Though not as small as Tobha, Metso was first and foremost a residential town, with most of its population commuting out to nearby cities for work each day. By this hour, there was very little traffic in and out of the town. Ling sat up straighter in his seat, concentrating on driving them to the address of the datacentre.

Strangely, a little after he has merged into the smaller roads of Metso, there came a pedestrian who planted himself straight at the center of the road. Ling was about to slow down, but Manos threw off his earphones and told him to turn right instead of stopping.

“Typical Jester trick,” Manos explained. “Works all the time in South City where the streets are narrow, and the driver doesn't have any other option but to stop. As soon as we slow down, they're going to mob us.”

However, when they've turned down the other street, they were welcomed by the same sight, another individual standing in their way.

“Let me revise what I just said. I meant any driver who cares a little too much about interpersonal relations.” Manos growled. “If you're not one of those, you can always run him over.”

“We can't do that,” Ling protested, finally stepping on the brakes to slow down.

“Wait, that's _exactly_ what they want you to do!” Manos exclaimed. “They'll –”

Before he could finish what he was trying to say, their slowing car rocked to the side as something hurtled against it. From the side mirrors, Ling saw shadows moving against their car. A thudding on the roof told him someone managed to climb up.

“Ugh, really?” he muttered under his breath. “I'd have thought they would go after the larger vehicles. Those ones are clearly carrying more things.”

When a gun shot erupted, and Ling felt the car skid to the left, he knew they'd blown a tire. Trying to remain in control of his steering, he was forced to take a narrow street and skid to a stop there.

“They obviously think we're trying to fool them,” Lan Fan said. “They must have assumed that the trucks are decoys and this car is loaded with the real stuff.” As soon as she finished saying this, someone came up to her side of the car and pointed a gun straight at her. She didn't even flinch. Reaching out of her window with expert swiftness, she disengaged the gun from his hand and threw it behind her. Manos yelped.

When the man backed away, Lan Fan stormed out of the car to deal with the men trying to open the trunk. Ling half wanted to see the expressions on their faces once they find out that this car was one of the decoy vehicles all along, but on the other hand, knocking them out would probably be the safest option to take. With a resigned shake of the head, he unbuckled himself from his seat and came out as well, delivering a well-timed punch as someone tried to make away with a box of fake plastic hard drive cases. The box clattered to the ground.

“Eh, be careful with that!” he exclaimed heartily. “Those things inside are priceless!”

He looked around, finding several motionless bodies littering the ground around the car, including the one who had stood in their path just a few minutes ago. Lan Fan was engaged in half-hearted combat near the back of the car, where it seemed that the source of most of her difficulties was trying to retrieve the stolen boxes and machines from the arms of the men she fought with. Amazing though her skills were, carrying heavy packages would be rather hard for anyone with one arm.

“Help out here, Manos!” he called to the young man still inside the car. “We didn't hire you for your good looks.”

Ling bent down to lift a server out of the arms of a still groaning woman, who bore a growing blue bruise on her cheekbone. After depositing it safely back inside of the car, he then strode next to Lan Fan, slipping by her side to pull out the stolen goods from the grasps of the thieves in between her dealing blows.

When the last man fell down, Ling was about to go back into the car when he heard the unmistakeable sound of feet slapping against the pavement in haste.

Lan Fan looked at him. “Should I even bother?”

“There's no harm in giving him a chase, I guess,” Ling said. “Regroup with us in five minutes.”

Lan Fan ran down the alley from which the steps were echoing.

“Make him fear for his life as if he carries a gigabyte of your selfies!” Ling called after her, before getting back in the car.

-o-

Lan Fan pursued the man with cheerful vigour. Occasionally, she let out a menacing “I'm going to get you!” or a frustrated “Come back here, you villain!” to which the man sped up like a hunted prey. Lan Fan almost laughed; people actually believed those kind of taunts? She sounded like a bad guy in a poorly directed movie!

Feeling herself run out of time, she slowed down as he turned a corner, then fully stopped chasing him. Yes, let him think he lost her. He'd probably start fiddling with those hard drives as soon as he could, only to find out they were loaded with episodes of Aerugan dramas. She laughed quietly to herself, feeling warmer after the pursuit. She turned around to try and return to Ling, when suddenly from around a small curb leading into the residential houses came a sprinting figure who collided with her, sending her to the ground.

She fell on her left side, making it difficult for her to break her fall. She landed on the pavement with an impact that left her breathless for half a heartbeat. The person who bumped into her went sprawling across the street beside her. Lan Fan pushed herself off of the ground as soon as she was able, and immediately assumed a defensive stance as her assailant slowly pulled himself to his feet. His head was covered with the hood of his sweater, but from his built, Lan Fan could tell that he was only slightly taller than her, with a lean frame narrower than Ling's.

Shouldn't be a problem.

His hood fell back and revealed a head topped with cropped, black hair, and pale Eastern features that marked him as Xingese. And he was looking at her as if he had seen a ghost.

“You!” he exclaimed, sounding incredulous. His eyes were fixed at her lifeless left sleeve.

Lan Fan was taken aback at the mention of her name. She studied the man's face again, probing her mind to see if she'd encountered this person before.

“Lan Fan?” he asked, quieter this time, and it was his voice that shattered the haze clouding her memory, bringing her back to what happened two years ago, the image of them so clear and fresh as if it had been just last hour.

She didn't know his name... she probably never cared enough to learn, and she definitely didn't care now. Some ember of anger in her burst back into flames, and all she wanted to do was claw his eyes out.

“What are you doing here?” she asked instead, steadying her stance even more. The warmth she felt just a few moments ago evaporated in his presence, and Lan Fan felt chilled again by the autumn wind.

A small smirk came over his face, and dread came over her in turn, though she didn't know why. She wasn't weak anymore. She wasn't even injured or trapped. “So it is you! I'm glad you remember the time we spent together.” He gave her a cheeky grin, and started walking forward. “I was afraid you wouldn't. You were a little... groggy after all, weren't you?”

“Stay back!” Lan Fan said, even though she was quite confident that she could take him on by herself. She was very different from the last time they had met, surely.

  
“Stay back?” he continued, sauntering over to her. “I helped cure your shoulder, for your information. Don't you have nicer things to say to someone who did that for you?”

Cure her shoulder, he said! He did a lot more than just _cure_ her shoulder, and how many iterations had they done before her shoulder patched itself up?

She took a big gulp of air to pacify her racing heart. The effect was immediate, and her pulse slowed, her head cleared. No point in getting caught up in the past now. Ling was not more than a couple of blocks away. He was waiting for her, and her five minutes had long expired.

“I don't have time for this,” she said and she was pleasantly surprised to hear how even her tone was. “If you're planning to stir up some trouble, it's the wrong time for you, I can assure you that.”

He grinned again as if she was an amusing entertainment he couldn't quite get enough of. “Oh, don't you worry. Whatever trouble I might be planning is long over.” He made a gesture as if to pat the pocket of his lose fitting sweatpants, but paused when he couldn't discern whatever he was trying to feel. Nervously, he pushed his hand in his pocket, waved it around, then felt the other pocket. When it was clear he didn't find what he was looking for there either, he started patting his back pockets and the front pouch of his sweater.

“Looking for this?” said a voice from somewhere above them, and Lan Fan looked up to find Paninya crouching expertly on top of a lamp post.

“Paninya!” she exclaimed, surprised even more to find her acquaintance in town, than to see her balancing on a metal rod narrower than the width of her own feet. The dark-skinned girl was holding up a keychain on which a collection of memory sticks were hanging instead of keys.

“Hey, that's mine!” the man said. “Give it back, thief!”

“I don't think so,” Paninya replied. “First of all it's not yours. You stole it from the truck three blocks away. Which makes _you_ a thief too, though I have to admit, not a very good one. What kind of thief allows their goods to be stolen back from them? Especially when they're the real deal too.” The agile girl jumped from her perch on top of the post, almost ten feet high according to Lan Fan's estimation. She landed gracefully, arms outstretched.

“What are you doing here?” Lan Fan asked as Paninya walked to her side.

“Oh, Future Mrs. Edward Elric planted me here in Metso _yesterday_ night. For incidentals, she said. Took you all long enough to show up, by the way.”

“Ha, _you're_ an Auto-Mail rat?” the young Xingese man pointed at Lan Fan. Then he let out a cacophonous laughter that made Lan Fan worry if someone from the residential houses across the street would yell out for him to shut up. “Wait until Dad hears about this!”

“Dad?” Paninya mumbled. She looked at Lan Fan. “You know this punk?” she asked so casually, as if she and Lan Fan were talking about a barista serving them coffee.

“No,” Lan Fan lied, and her edginess returned. “Paninya, do me a favour. Go to Ling with those flash sticks. Tell him I'm fine. He should go to the centre if he can.”

“Okie!” Paninya gave her a thumbs up, and ran in the skippy way of hers, as if she was a little girl out frolicking in the fields.

“What do you want from me?” Lan Fan asked as soon as Paninya's footsteps had faded.

“Nothing!” he said, bringing his hands up in a defensive wave. “Honestly, I didn't expect to see _you_ here. Which is why I think Dad would love to hear about what you're up to.”

Dad... now that was going to be a problem. She knew that Ling wanted to have as clean a process as possible tonight, but all of them participating in the hoax knew that it was quite an unachievable goal to strive for. Anyone who attempted to intervene with their migration posed as a potential hazard to their plans; leaving them alive could mean witnesses to their trickery, but killing anyone would arouse further suspicions as to why the State Military weren't coming down on black markets more vigorously. It was a difficult scale to balance, but Ling told her that it was safer to leave witnesses – those who confront them tonight wouldn't willingly go to the State Military to confess anything.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the State Military this boy would go to, and that made it worse.

Without giving it too much more thought, she leapt towards him, hand poised to deliver a quick punch, but like she'd already expected, he dodged it expertly. He swiveled to her left, trying to take advantage of the fact that she couldn't protect her left side, but she matched his pace and turned before he could exploit her weakness.

She saw him frown, and reach for something from his ankle-high boots, but she was one-step ahead of him when she blocked the knife he pulled from his footwear with one of her own.

“I see you still favour knives,” he joked, as he leaned in for an unsuccessful slash.

“I see you still do too,” Lan Fan retorted in disgust, trying to keep her mind from recalling things that a person in the middle of a fight should never worry herself with.

He made several slashes in quick succession in an effort to catch her off guard, but she managed to block them. When she aimed for his thigh, he blocked it with yet another knife, held in his left hand. She looked up, and caught his smirk.

“I guess the difference between us is that I can use two,” he smiled widely, and brought the knife down, but she jumped out of the way, distancing herself. He only laughed, and was about to lunge in again, when his strike halted in mid-air, and his eyes bugged in surprise.

Or pain.

Lan Fan looked down to see the tip of a knife extruding from his belly. His hands unclenched, and his own weapons clattered to the ground. She blanched, took a few steps back, and was shocked to see who was behind him after he'd fallen down on the ground, clutching his wound.

“Grandpa,” she whispered, shocked.

Well, who else was here that nobody bothered to tell her about? And how did her grandfather travel all the way to Metso in time to kill this man? How was he even walking? _Why_ was he even here?

She shook her head, trying to clear it. Too many surprises. “What are you doing here?” she asked for the third time that night.

“I don't like being idle,” he said briefly. Which probably meant that he didn't want to be absent on yet another one of her supposedly dangerous missions. And considering who she met tonight, she couldn't exactly say that his instincts were wrong.

“But...” she was about to protest, when he took something from his coat pocket and tossed it to her. It was his medicine.

Down to its last quarter.

“You drank _that_ _much_?” she asked, horrified. “Grandpa, you should have stayed–”

“Enough, Lan Fan,” he growled. “You know what he would do if he lived. Unless you were planning to finish him off yourself.”

She wasn't, but at the same time she didn't exactly know what she had planned to do with him either. Her mind was working at a turtle's pace, and all she could do was look at the growing pool of blood beneath the man who fought her.

Lan Fan was knocked out of her stupor by sounds of running feet, and she turned to see, with disappointment weighing her heart, Ling enter the area with Paninya behind him. The girl was gesturing wildly, shrugging her shoulders exaggeratedly as if to tell Lan Fan without words that she had tried to stop Ling from coming.

Ling stopped a few paces away, wide-eyed with wonder at seeing her grandfather hale and able to stand with no help. Then his eyes traveled to the bloodied knife in the old man's hand, then finally to the body now lying motionless in between the two fighters.

“Who is that?” he asked quietly. He looked disturbed. He reached over to get a better look at the man's face, then paused for a long moment, his eyes becoming even wider that Lan Fan was actually able to see the whites around his irises.

When he stood up, he looked at her grimly.

“It's one of my older half-brothers,” he said quietly, and she felt another blow of shock. She didn't expect Ling to be familiar with him as well. And definitely not as a brother. “What happened?”

He turned to her, gaze intense with worry, and Lan Fan found herself desperately checking if there lingered any accusation in it. She opened her mouth to try and say something, anything, but she couldn't find the words to possibly explain that someone who had once threatened her and her grandfather's lives showed up and picked a fight with her. To save her from the trouble, her grandfather spoke for her.

“He threatened to tell your father about this,” the old man said, which Lan Fan couldn't deny being quite true.

“Oh,” Ling said, shaking his head. He looked back at her, and it became clear to Lan Fan that he wanted to hear things from _her_ specifically. “I don't understand... what was he even doing here?”

“He stole this from Ridel's truck,” Paninya explained, pulling the keychain from her pocket. “They're the back up of the old configurations for the databases we're moving. I don't think he's part of the Jesters though.”

“No, he wouldn't be,” Ling said softly. “Not if he said he would tell my father about us.” He rubbed his hands over his face, clearly agitated by this turn of events.

“Ling...” Lan Fan started, and he nodded at her to continue, probably relieved that she was finally taking the responsibility of explaining something. “Look, my grandfather and I... we didn't mean...” she paused, and reworded what she was trying to say, since obviously a knife to the gut was not something that could have been 'not meant.' “Well, it was dangerous to let him go.” And it was, though she knew that Fu didn't do it to save the operation.

Ling slowly nodded, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know. I'll have to call Mustang to explain.” He motioned for the rest of them to get back to the car.

“We're just leaving him here?” Paninya asked.

“We can't bring him anywhere,” Ling said.

“What if someone sees him and calls the police?”

Ling pulled his phone out and began dialing. “That's why I'm calling the Colonel now so that if someone reports it they'll know how to take care of it.”

After Ling had sorted that out, they made the short trip to the datacentre in painful silence. Once they were there, they were too busy helping set everything up in the new office that they didn't have time to go over the incident. When dawn was about to break, Lan Fan received a call from Winry, who was in a decoy vehicle destined for three other towns to provide sufficient evidence that Auto-Mail was trying to throw off military pursuit. She and Ed got a message from Fuery that they were now being deployed.

“Alright, thanks,” Lan Fan said, before hanging up. She caught up with Ling and told them it was time to go.

He still looked stressed. When he sensed her eyes on him, he lifted one of his shoulders in a half shrug.

“Look, it wasn't like I was fond of the guy anyway,” he told her quietly. “What makes me worried is that my father sent someone here to confirm Auto-Mail's efforts to evade the government investigation. That means he found a reason to doubt Winry and Edward during their negotiations and interview last week.”

“You said he was paranoid,” Lan Fan offered. “Maybe he does this all the time, you know? See how his investments are faring?”

“Maybe,” Ling acquiesced, but the worry in his eyes didn't leave. “We still have to tighten up our operations.”

-o-

The ride back to Ling's mansion was a hot pot of inner turmoil. The panic she felt when Ling's brother appeared and taunted her had seeped so deeply within her that she could still feel it echoing in her bones. To her right, her grandfather sat in poor spirits, at least seemingly so from her vantage point. He was withering, which told her unwelcome deductions about the Red Stone. He'd gurgled more than half of it to save her hide, and Lan Fan wondered if her life was even worth 2500 sens.

They had dropped Metso off in Rush Valley. It was quieter in the car without him.

Ling drove silently, eyes blinking in rapid succession to keep drowsiness at bay. Lan Fan herself was sleepy, but she knew that with her hands still clammy from nerves, sleep would never overtake her. She wondered why, for an introverted person, was she always so confused. Didn't people like her have some kind of introspective grace to organize the thoughts in their heads? Something that would tell her, 'Lan Fan, you ought to feel guilty for killing Ling's brother.' But she hadn't killed him. Her grandfather did. But for all her finger pointing, she knew that she was more to blame than anyone else in the operation last night, and if she hadn't been there, perhaps Ling's brother would have lived, his ignorance saving him.

Still, there was more burdening her than just the guilt (or lack thereof), and she felt its weight in her pants pocket the entire ride home. She itched to bring it out, test it now, because something had dawned on her and it frightened her a little more than having been caught by Big Brother.

When Ling finally eased his car into the garage beside his house, she hopped out of the vehicle impatiently, fetching her grandfather from the opposite side. He didn't seem to need her help though, but she thought it best that she walk him up to his room, and make sure that Rosé had all that she needed to look after her grandfather. Fu wasn't a needy man, wasn't even that picky or sensitive. Sometimes Lan Fan wondered whether she was wasting Ling's money by hiring Rosé, but Ling assured her that it was a win-win situation. Her grandfather had an extra eye watching over him should he need it in their absence, Rosé was making money to pay for her studies, and Lan Fan didn't have to worry about her grandfather that much when they were out. And if Ling didn't mind what happened to his money, Lan Fan supposed she shouldn't either.

After chucking her dusty outerwear and slipping into the homey clothes she'd worn the night before, she made her way to the bathroom on the second floor. Clasped tightly in her only hand was the bottle of Red Stone. She locked the door behind her, and braced herself against the sink.

It didn't make sense that her grandfather had finished three quarters of the Red Stone. Not at the usual rate that he did so. Even if he had consumed more the previous evening to be able to travel and fight for one night, it shouldn't have taken so much. And the effects shouldn't have worn off in just a few hours. She dreaded the two implications she could think of: that her grandfather was becoming worse or that the medicine was becoming less effective. She didn't know which one was worse.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the medicinal closet above the sink, and took out a pair of foldable scissors. She unfolded it and spread the handles apart to expose the blades in between. In a calculated, downward flick of her wrist, she cut open her skin on the upper part of her inner arm, below any vitals. It wasn't deep enough to earn a grimace from her, but it would be deep enough for her experiment.

She snatched the bottle of Red Stone, ignoring the drops of blood that stained the sink. Though she loathed to do it, she tried to remember the time when she herself had been an indigent patient of the Red Stone, and tried to estimate how much it would have taken her – at that time then – to cure a small cut on her arm.

Two teaspoons had cured her entire gorey stump of a shoulder.

A drop or two should easily heal this tiny gash.

Slowly, she tilted the bottle over her mouth, watching the progress of the liquid carefully as it inched its way to the edge of the bottle. Using her pointer finger to tap the glass, two drops fell onto her waiting tongue. She swallowed, watching the cut intently.

Nothing happened.

Lan Fan took a calming breath. She focused momentarily on applying the cap back on, setting the Red Stone aside. She glanced back at her arm, half hoping to see an unblemished skin in place of the cut. She couldn't stop the sinking feeling as the bleeding, split skin instead welcomed her sight.

What was wrong? It should have been healed by now.

Heart thudding, she waited a moment more, blinking back her nervousness. She looked around. At the shiny white tiles decorated with blue and pink flowers. The tub at the opposite end of the room. The clean towels stacked on the metal rack. Everything was white and pastel. So starkly different from the bright crimson of the blood drops accumulating on the sink's counter.

The cut was still there.

Harried by the ineffectiveness, she opened the bottle again, and grudgingly telling herself that she'd have to pay for another bottle soon anyway, she took an entire gulp of the crimson liquid.

Shakily, she stoppered the bottle, eyes never leaving her arm.

Her breath caught at the sight of the edges of her flesh twitching, and for a moment she second guessed herself if she actually saw them move. But in the next slow expanse of time, the edges began to fold together starting from the right most corner of the wound. As they met, they left behind a perfectly seamless patch of skin. Lan Fan watched, unsmiling, knowing what it all meant, when suddenly the cure stopped. Halfway across what was once the cut was now healthy skin and tissue, while the other half was still split open, sporting a bloody clot.

Lan Fan let out a breath, not with the relief she was expecting to do it, but with utter frustration and anger.

He had _lied_.

And what had she expected, really? All this time, hadn't he backtracked on his word every step of the way? The Red Stone used to be _free!_ A form of apology, he'd said. A good bargain, what a deal it had been! And in a span of two years, she went from merely physically crippled to also being financially so.

Now he diluted the medicine!

How long had it been like this? Had her grandfather been masking some of his pain to make her believe that one bottle per month had been enough? What if he'd never shown up at the hoax? She would never had suspected anything.

Lan Fan placed the bottle back in her pocket. She looked up, and was startled to see her aghast, pale face reflected back from the mirror above the sink. Her hair was disheveled, her face still dusty from the fiasco last night. Somehow this curdled her mood even more, and she swiped furiously at the blood on the sink, before spinning around to open the door.

And she bumped onto an absolutely half-naked Ling.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed, just as she recoiled back in surprise. She felt him grab her on the waist to steady her, while his other hand fumbled with the towel haplessly tied about his hips. “Sorry, I didn't know you were in there. Ma's using the bathroom upstairs,” he explained. He still looked a little somber. Then to her extreme mortification, she noticed a bloody half-formed hand print smack dab on the left side of his chest. Gasping, she reached out before she could think things through in an attempt to wipe it off.

“I'm so sorry!” she cried, watching in horror as her wiping did nothing to clean his chest, but rather spread the mess around all the more. “Oh gosh, it should be drying, there's not that much!”

Ling grasped her wrist to stop her from making things worse, and noticed the cut on her inner arm.

“Hey, I didn't know you were injured. Did my brother do this?” he said, looking curiously at her arm, then on his chest, then past her into the bathroom. Then his eyes widened with some kind of dawning realization.

Lan Fan looked back, and saw the scissors lying on the sink and the blood stain on the counter which she'd both left in her disturbed haste.

“I'm sorry, I'm going to clean that up, and uh...” she trailed off, as she watched Ling's already weary expression darken with dreadful concern.

“Lan Fan,” he said softly but urgently, his brows knotting together. “I know life is rough sometimes, but you're not alone anymore, and oh god, I'm not at _all_ prepared for this and I've no idea how to handle it, but you can always come to me and talk to me. I don't want you to feel as if this is your only option and – ”

“Wait, what?” Lan Fan asked, trying very hard not to allow the blush to rise to her cheeks, aware though she was of how close he was to her. And, oh _dammit,_ he was in a lousy towel, and now he was making crazy assumptions! “No, no, this is not what it looks like at all.”

“Is this about my brother and what I said earlier? Look, I might have made a bigger deal out of it than it deserves, okay? Or is this about your grandfather? I know I might not be the most trustworthy looking guy around, my eyes are so shifty and small, but I promise you this Lan Fan, I am here to listen– ”

“No, no! Ling, whatever you're thinking, it's not true. I was just...” she paused wondering how she could possibly say that she was experimenting with her grandfather's medicine. He didn't even know that she had once used it herself. If he knew that she had more knowledge about it than she was letting on, he'd have even more reason to be suspicious of her. And that wasn't what she needed right now.

“Then what is it about? Did something happen last night?” Ling persisted, placing a hand on her upper arm, and the other – since she had no other arm – on her waist.

“No! Honestly, why can't you just leave it alone? Why do you have to ask so many questions?” she said, exasperated.

“I'm trying to help you,” he said, eyes narrowing just a little from his wide-eyed worry.

“As a what, an investigator?” she spat.

“As a _friend!_ ” he cried back, his face now losing all tender concern out of anger. It took her a moment to realize that he wasn't angry, more than he was... hurt?

“Ahem!”

Lan Fan jumped, startled, head turning to where Yuna was watching them from the bottom of the stairs that led to the third floor. Her wet hair was combed back neatly, the ends of her locks ending in a clean straight line. She was wearing an ironed blazer and dress pants to match.

“I hope this isn't what it looks like,” Yuna continued, eyes mildly reprimanding, lips curled in unsure amusement.

Lan Fan returned her attention back to Ling and herself, and crimsoned to the roots of her hair as it dawned on her how things might have seemed, with him hovering over her, towel barely clinging onto his hipbones, their faces close enough that had she stood on the tips of her toes, they could have kissed.

Immediately, she backed away, mind racing with embarrassment.

“No!” she cried out, hand waving out before her in an effort to emphasize her point. “I mean, yes, it's not! I mean I would never – I couldn't... this isn't what's going on at all! I'll never – ” She ceased babbling, and with one final, pained glance at both Ling and Yuna, she fled to her room and shut the door behind her.

Stupid!

Lan Fan placed her hand on her cheek to try and cool the heat she felt radiating from the skin. She wished some dead ancestor would come and claim her soul, so at the very least, she didn't have to be _here_ , in this moment in this place. She'd blundered through the entire thing; and she didn't know if she was more ashamed to have been caught, not once, but twice in a compromising situation, or to know that she couldn't even stand up for herself and explain herself gracefully.

She had blundered her way through the past twelve hours. Ugh.

She landed, face first, on her bed and groaned. Her sharp hearing caught the voices outside. Ling and Yuna seemed to be arguing about something, and trying to wonder what it was about made her insides clench with humiliation.

Only a moment later, she heard a knock on her door. She froze. Technically this wasn't even her home. Was she even allowed to claim that her bedroom was her private space when Yuna was the one who owned it? Ling and his mother had never treated her as if she couldn't do anything around their house, but she also knew that she would be stepping severely out of place should she act as if it was her property.

With reluctance, she rose from the bed and opened the door.

Yuna was on the other side with a tentative smile. “Can I come in?”

Lan Fan nodded, opening the door a little wider so that Yuna could enter. They sat on Lan Fan's bed not speaking for a while, before Yuna broke the silence.

“Are you okay?” she asked tenderly.

Lan Fan nodded.

“My son wasn't... accosting you, was he?”

Lan Fan chuckled. “No, not like that at all. He... meant well.”

Yuna nodded, eying her closely. Then she smiled a little. “Good, because I would be severely disappointed to know that I had raised a lech. It's odd with him, you know. He's not a particularly reserved individual, but I think he's afraid he'd be like his father.”

Lan Fan understood. “Ling is a good kid,” she allowed herself to say. Overzealous perhaps. Maybe a little over the realistic side. Okay, even crazy, she wasn't going to mince the truth to herself. “He's been kinder to me than anyone I know.”

“Thank you,” Yuna said. “That's good to know.” She reached out and combed her fingers through Lan Fan's hair, arranging it so that it fell in a neat heap on her back. It felt strange to Lan Fan, but not uncomfortable.

“Grandpa killed Ling's brother,” she said, somehow feeling as if Yuna should know. Yuna's fingers froze in her hair.

“And you're upset about that?” Yuna asked. Lan Fan wished she didn't, because she honestly didn't know how to feel about it.

“You have to remember,” Yuna continued. “That you and your grandfather came from a clan of warriors and soldiers. Probably the best in Imperial Xing. You might not think it's a big deal since you didn't grow up in that kind of culture, but your grandfather would surely remember what it's like to face a threat and think that the only option is to kill.”

“And you think that's okay?” Lan Fan asked.

“I think... your grandfather is _very_ old,” Yuna answered with a small smile. “But because of him, I have one less person to worry about for my son's sake.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Lan Fan said, hoping Yuna would not get offended by what she intended to ask.

“Shoot.”

“Why did you marry him? Henry Chu, I mean.”

The older woman's smile widened to a devilish smirk. “I was paid.”

Lan Fan's jaw dropped, and she felt the oncoming onslaught of embarrassment creep up to her face again. But Yuna just laughed, waving away her imminent mortification.

“Oh it's not so bad!” she trilled. “Really, it would have been much worse if I had really married him because I was in love. At least in my opinion. This way when things got ugly, and they got ugly pretty quickly... perhaps they were never pretty at all, actually, I didn't bear the responsibility for it. You might think me childish, but that's how I truly feel.”

Lan Fan hesitated, thinking that she might be sticking her nose into something that wasn't for her to know. But Yuna just quirked her eyebrow at Lan Fan, encouraging her to spit out her question.

“Why did you agree to something like that?”

“It wasn't exactly my idea. Henry made the deal with my father. When Xing imploded after the late emperor had died without establishing the succession, and the Xiaos were the ones who managed to seat themselves on the throne, Henry became a target of assassination. Obviously, since he was supposed to inherit before the Fifty Wives System disintegrated. Everyone knew he'd like to take it back any way he knows how. Me, on the other hand, was born here in Amestris, since my mother fled Xing during the Oblique Era. I'm the Yao Chief's fourth daughter, so I wasn't that important. When Henry offered money to my father in exchange for refuge, he took it. He used part of the money to keep himself afloat during the tipsy times, and the rest he sent to mother and me to catapult us into affluence here in the West.”

She ended with a casual shrug, almost as if things like that happened all the time. And perhaps they did, in Xing, but Lan Fan found it quite alien to the customs within which she'd grown. Her parents had been in love. At least that was what she heard. And though Grandpa Fu would jest time and again that he'd been too poor to afford multiple wives, he and her paternal grandmother had been very close, at least as faithful partners, if not as a passionate couple. Maybe it had something to do with them being warriors; why care about money and status when they died too early to enjoy it?

But the people of the island of Tong Hua had been culturally different in many of their practices and values anyway. That was why they'd demanded independence for a long time. Now they were only marginally part of Xing, a satellite state with even their own ruling body to boast. The Xingese empire was a vast amalgamation of conquered peoples that one could easily travel by foot and reach a village that did not speak one's dialect. Perhaps with the Yaos, their closest neighbours across the strait, marriage was nothing more than monetary contract.

“Eh don't look so somber!” Yuna teased, bumping her shoulder against Lan Fan's. “Remember, no matter what we think about Chu, he gave me one thing I'm eternally grateful for.”

“Ling?” Lan Fan hazarded a guess.

“That's right,” Yuna nodded. “I mean, sure, I was hoping for a girl but I can't imagine being happier with anyone else.”

“Aren't you worried?”

“About what?”

“Well, about all these crazy things he gets into. What if he gets hurt? What if he dies?”

“That's what you're here for, aren't you?” Yuna asked, and even though Lan Fan knew she wasn't being entirely serious, Lan Fan still felt the weight of responsibility crash on her shoulders.

-o-

Ling fell into a deep slumber after his bath, forgetting to wake for both late morning breakfast and lunch. By the time he regained consciousness, the sun was on its path down the West, the sky a glowing ember of orange. He scratched his eyes and wriggled on his bed, feeling lethargic and achy. The events of the previous night ran through his head, and though he didn't want to _think_ when his head was throbbing with lack of sleep, he couldn't help but try to probe their moves for any loopholes.

Maybe Lan Fan was right. Maybe his father was just paranoid and wanted someone to check how Auto-Mail was faring with their evasion. He would not send someone to steal database configurations, of all things! His brother had been there for a different purpose.

Now he was dead, and that would definitely tell his father something as well. With luck, Ling hoped that his Dad would assume that Auto-Mailers were simply ruthless.

He ran a hand through his now dried hair, grimacing when he realized that his pillow was now drenched in that distinct _wet-hair_ smell, then finally rose.

He was up for only a few minutes, when he heard a soft knock on his door.

“Come in, I'm awake now,” he called. He wasn't entirely surprised when Lan Fan reluctantly poked her head in, looking down on the floor as if it was the most interesting thing in his room.

“Uh, I made you a snack,” she said, looking at him briefly. “Crunchy noodle soup in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, Lan Fan.”

“Uh...” she hovered by the doorway, a pale face framed by two black fringes floating between the door and the wall.

“Anything else I can do for you?” he asked as he folded his blankets.

She then stepped inside and closed the door shut.

“Yes, actually. I wish to apologize.”

“Oh?”

She flushed and for a moment seemed tempted to look down again, but she held his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I'm sorry for what I said earlier. You have been very good to me, and you didn't deserve to be brushed aside like that.” She clamped her lips after that, standing so stiffly that Ling wondered if she was trying to impersonate the door beside her.

The thought that Lan Fan had scripted that and memorized it before coming to him flitted through his mind. He almost smiled, because knowing exactly how secretive Lan Fan was, he was sure it had not been easy for her to decide to have this rather personal conversation.

Ling sat down on his now well-made bed. “Apology accepted. Only if you accept mine too.”

“Huh?” her eyes snapped up to meet his again.

“I jumped to conclusions, I admit that. I shouldn't have done it. Someone who assumes things without knowing the entire information... that's not the kind of person I want to be. And that's not the kind of person I want you to think I am. I should have let you explain.”

When she just stood there, likely surprised by his own apology, he added, “Only if you want to.” He didn't want her to think he was using his apology to force her to open up, even though he was quite curious about what she was doing in the bathroom.

“It's alright,” she whispered. “I didn't keep my wits about me either.”

He shrugged. “We were tired.”

“And...” she fished for something in her pocket and pulled out the bottle of Red Stone. Ling perked up. “I was upset. Grandpa's medicine isn't working as well as it used to.”

Ling raised his eyebrows. “He was up and stabbing people last night.”

Her flush darkened. “I know, but it shouldn't have taken this much. Remember when I said that several months ago we were still able to keep him healthy for three days straight? That took half as much as what he took last night. And now he's back in bed, with a fever.”

“Is he getting worse then?”

“I don't think so,” Lan Fan said with a conviction that sounded as if she wasn't making a conjecture at all. “I think it's the medicine. Look, I don't know what's happening, but I think the safest path to take right now is to make another deposit to buy a new bottle for Grandfather.”

A part of Ling itched to bring up the topic again of getting someone to help her. It was so clear to him that whoever her seller was, he was taking advantage of Lan Fan. Why did she let him? She had so many resources now. But knowing how his suggestions have been received before, he thought that maybe he should lay off for now.

“Do you need a ride? I'll take you there.”

“Oh, sure!” she said, a small smile flitting across her lips. “Thank you.” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt, her sleeves being too short to touch without reaching up. She was about to turn around to exit his room when he called out.

“Lan Fan?”

“Yes?”

“We _are_ friends though, right?” he asked, looking at her, trying to keep her eyes from darting back to her favourite spot on his carpet. A part of him wondered if he was just pushing things too far; they obviously weren't bound by loyalty yet, and there was a lot he didn't know about her. But people had to start somewhere. They always did. Most people didn't come baring their souls and hearts wantonly to strangers.

“Yeah,” she answered, and gave a small shrug. He winced, wondering if she was trying to say she didn't really much have a choice, or she didn't care either way if they were friends or weren't. “At least you're probably the closest to one that I've ever had.”

The image of Lan Fan as a lonely little loner at her school crossed his mind, but he checked himself and stopped the idea from taking root. He didn't know much about how Lan Fan grew up, and he meant every word when he said he would not jump to conclusions anymore. Yet he was still moved by the feeling that though they were friends, they weren't even truly close at that, and that was all she'd had.

Before he knew it, she was in his arms, and he was glomping her so hard she squirmed.

“Ling!”

“I'm sorry, I'm just... give me a moment, okay?” he said, cheek resting against her hair. “It's been a terribly strange and exhausting twenty four hours.”

“Are you _crying_?!”

“No, of course not!” He let her go and she blushed furiously, unable to meet his eyes. For some reason he couldn't quite fathom, he found that incredibly funny. He started laughing, which earned him a glare from her. “Alright, no more hugs for you. Gosh, you're a lot like Ed.” And she glared even harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Gah! This chapter flew out of my system like it was claustrophobic. It took me exactly 7 days to write, and that's a record. It never takes me that short to write a 15 paged chapter.
> 
> There were two more scenes I had planned to write in this chapter, including what the team decided to do with Ed and Winry's interviews, because let's face it, they kinda got the short end of the stick last chapter. I wanted to bring it up to a better note, because Ed would never let things go unchecked especially when he and people he cares about are treated badly. Suffice it to say, they do have a plan for that, but it'll come next chapter.
> 
> I never expected these two scenes (Hoax # 1 and its aftermath) to take up so many pages. I think what happened is that my outline was so plot-driven that I didn't realize how much characterization I needed to support the events. Lan Fan bumping into an almost naked Ling came out of nowhere, by the way. But considering how fast the scene evolved in my head, it was begging to be written. (If I were in the habit of naming chapters, this one ought to be called “What Are You Doing Here and This is Not What It Looks Like.”)
> 
> The only thing that I'm worried about is that it threw off my scene arrangement in each chapter.
> 
> Anyway, if you've managed to get this far, I sincerely thank you! I'd love to hear what you think.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hey guys, sorry for the late update! I try to alternate writing and drawing every week. But after I wrote Chapter 6, I was itching to write Metaphor, so I didn't start on this chapter right away. After I did, I realized I had to iron out some kinks in the plot for things to make sense. This is my favourite chapter, and although I ruined my no-20-paged rule, I feel like I really have to get to this point. Stretching things out more just sounds painful and self-indulgent.
> 
> Anyway, this part of the story is something that I looked forward to writing for a long time. I might even say that the idea of the events in this chapter is really what fueled me to write this story in the first place.
> 
> Also, just a notification: I tweaked something in Chapter 2. Ling said that he was looking for Lan Fan for years, but I realized a little too late that it doesn't really make sense. If Lan Fan is a member of Auto-Mail, and Ling is friends with the leaders of Auto-Mail, he would have found her very quickly if he just did a simple search in the network. So I just changed it to him looking for her for several months after Operation Greed 1.0, because then she would still be recuperating from her injury, and she'd be absent from the network.
> 
> Fun Fact: Lan Fan's favourite tea flavour from Tealicious is strawberry-mango milk tea. She was home-schooled.

Ling sipped the bowl of crunchy noodle soup that Lan Fan prepared for him after he woke from his nap. His mother had just called and told them that she would be late coming home from work. A client from hell visited, and it would take some time before she could pacify him.

Rosé was beside them, having a bowl of soup herself. “So, how long does it usually take to get another bottle of medicine?” she asked Lan Fan.

“The arrangement is usually for me to make the payment first,” Lan Fan explained. “A few days later, I make a trip back to the mailbox, and the bottle of medicine is there.”

Rosé nodded. “Your grandfather's temperature spiked up an hour ago. His fever is getting worse. Should I use more of your special medicine?” she inquired. “I'm not sure if there would be enough left if you have to wait several more days for the next supply.”

“Stretch it,” Lan Fan answered, looking conflicted. “Administer it only when he gets terribly worse. If you can, give him some over-the-counter pain relievers or fever reducers instead.”

Scattered on the dining table were Ling's notes, mixed with the short, encrypted messages from the investigation after Mustang's crew arrived at the vacant Rush Valley Auto-Mail datacentre that morning. They had successfully confiscated all items that held the clues to the identities of some Auto-Mailers involved in the relocation. They found fingerprints from drink bottles and door knobs, hair strands from discarded hair elastics, and one volunteer even left behind a library card on a spare couch. Breda congratulated them on making the scene purposefully look like a harried attempt to escape a rather recently-discovered government inspection. The colonel had dispatched Havoc and Falman to follow one of the false trails leading away from Rush Valley. The trail to Metso was rendered amorphous so no one would question Mustang's decision to leave that at the bottom of their follow-up list. Identifying the volunteers would surely be the next priority in the investigation, and would mostly pacify the higher ups.

Really, everything seemed to be going as planned. Excepting, of course, for the major, unignorable turn of events caused by Ling's brother's appearance and consequent death. Ling still didn't know what it would imply. The fact that his brother, who had hinted that he was to report his findings to their father, failed to reappear would surely alert Chu that something had gone wrong. Ling wasn't worried about vengeance; Chu never harboured the kind of connection to his children that would warrant gross feelings of loss. He was more worried about what his father would deduce from the death itself.

He first became acquainted with this older half-brother five years ago when his mother casually mentioned that their Yao estate in Xing was vandalized by a scorned woman who happened to be one of Henry Chu's old lovers from before he married Yuna. Curiosity got the better of Ling, and he searched for information regarding his father's past romantic relations. Though he had little more to go on than rumours, there were also many that were confirmed; Henry Chu, after all, had been a prominent figure in Xingese politics as the intended heir many years ago. His first child, a daughter, was born only when the cursed man was sixteen, two years younger than Ling himself was now, gotten by a servant he'd enjoyed for a while. Ling remembered the repulsion he felt after discovering that, but some years ago, when he looked up the woman, he found out that she and the daughter were doing well after migrating to Aerugo. His sister was now married herself.

There had been plenty of gossip surrounding his father. The sibling who died last night was from a mistress whom Chu had promised to marry after being crowned. Of course, since Chu never got the chance, he never married the woman. Despite the shame that Ling was sure came with his illegitimacy, the mother made it well known that her son was Chu's flesh and blood, and she sent him as a young man to Amestris to reconcile with his father. He sprouted in the country under the name of Arthur Hwang, and he and Ling had very little contact except for some vile letters concerning inheritance that Hwang had sent Ling.

“Lan Fan,” he began. “Tell me what happened when my brother showed up.”

The Xingese girl shifted in her seat, and brushed her growing bangs out of her face. She spared a glance at Rose, who stared back, politely interested.

“Well, like I explained earlier, after I chased the Jester and was about to return to you, your brother happened to run into me. Quite literally too. Then Paninya showed up, and from what she said, it appears as if he'd raided Ridel's truck to steal the memory stick, which Paninya managed to take back. Then he started babbling, saying things about how his father would love to hear about... about, well, the mission that we were carrying out last night. I tried to stop him from leaving, and we engaged in a fight, which ended when grandfather surprisingly showed up and stabbed him.”

Paninya related something similar before they had left Metso, but there were dots that Ling failed to connect.

In polite conversation, none of Chu's offsprings would dare bring up the fact that he's their father, at least not in Amestris where Chu grew his company as his very own empire. His was a name more commonly used as a weapon. And not many of his children could boast a close enough relationship with the man that they would be confident he would act as an aggressor on their behalf.

Lan Fan's reply sure sounded like something Arthur would say, but Ling listened to the gut feeling that told him there was something amiss. Now that his Hwang brother was dead, there was no one else who could confirm what happened. It wasn't like he doubted the older boy's connection with his father; _that_ part he really believed, but what he didn't understand was Fu's rather exaggerated decision to kill him, only because of a threat that may not hold that much substance. Henry Chu already knew that Auto-Mail would try to escape the government's investigation of the black-markets. And even if Chu found out that Ling was also connected to the underground network, there wasn't much he could deduce from that either. Many people used Auto-Mail. Rich or poor.

Still, it seemed to Ling as if Fu and Lan Fan had other reasons for quickly resorting to eliminating the Hwang boy that way. Especially when Ling didn't even get a chance to question him.

“Lan Fan, this is dangerous,” he said, as he took one final sip from his bowl. “We have to be more careful. Next time you find someone suspicious, bring him to me. Or Colonel Mustang, whichever one of us is closer. We have to find out as much as possible about the people whose actions affect us. It's not good to be ignorant of those things.”

Lan Fan looked chagrined, but nodded.

“Why was he stealing the memory stick, do you know?” Rosé asked.

“The memory stick contained database configurations, though I'm pretty sure that stealing it is just a cover for the actual work that my father assigned him: namely, to spy on us,” Ling answered.

“Database configurations...” Rosé mused. “Which database? I imagine Auto-Mail has hundreds, if not thousands of databases. Do you think it was random?”

Ling was surprised to realize that he hadn't bothered checking. He was so absorbed in trying to figure out the motivations of those around him based on what little he knew, that he completely missed the opportunity to widen his perspective.

Turning to Lan Fan, he said, “Paninya gave you the USB stick, didn't she?” His bodyguard nodded, and she headed up the stairs to her room to retrieve the portable drive. When she came back, he plugged it in his lap top, and fired up the directory explorer to browse through the files. He opened up one of the text files, and created a connection in DataHunter using the configurations the file contained. Once the access had been approved, he typed the command that listed the tables of the database. Lan Fan was beside him, looking over his shoulder.

“Those are the databases consisting of our info on government officials,” Lan Fan said, reading the names listed in the result of the query. “Ling, I don't think it's a cover up.”

His mind was on the same path. Among the notes on the table were printed pictures of the documents and files they found in the Tobha office. The preparation for Operation Greed 2.0 had coveted much of Ling's attention that he hadn't had a lot of time outside of school hours to devote to studying his findings from Tobha. That might have been a mistake. He sifted through the mess on the table, and finally pulled out all the ones related to Grumman.

“He's interested in the president?” Rosé asked.

“I wouldn't be too surprised if he is,” Lan Fan said. “If I were in the business of breaking every single law in the book, I'd be a little concerned about what the law enforcers are up to.”

“But Grumman isn't a law enforcer,” Ling reminded them. “He is a law _maker_. Chu is setting his sights a little higher than just trying to avoid the rear view of prison bars if Grumman is his target.” Ling took one of the pictures of Grumman, a photograph in an article about his get-together with the leaders of their neighbouring countries, a year or so after he took over the title as president of Amestris.

“I don't understand,” Lan Fan said. “I know Chu is a little bonkers, but if he's trying to take over the presidency, he's a lot more far gone than I thought.”

“He'll be risking a civil war!” Ling added, pursing his lips. “And Amestris is still recovering from the political collapse of the Sanitary Movement. Amestrians would never support him. He wouldn't even have enough power to overthrow Grumman. Rich as he is, he doesn't control enough military power to do something like that.”

“Is there anything else from your research that would suggest what he's probably aiming for?” Rose said, looking through Ling's pile of notes.

Ling set aside the articles on Grumman, and looked over his other findings. He hadn't been able to decode the names from Henry Chu's list of appointments that he took at Tobha, given that he hadn't had a lot of free time. But there were articles he kept track of, from newspaper clippings to online curated blog posts, as he'd always been on the lookout for any mention of his father.

“Let's see here. Last month it seemed as if he met with some entrepreneurs from Xing. Not surprising. The journalist didn't say if he struck a bargain with them though. During an outing up north, he ran into the Minister of Trade appointed by Grumman, and it was said that the two of them chatted for some time over the course of several days.” Ling placed the articles down, and browsed through his notebook.

“There was one report from another Auto-Mailer,” he continued, “that father was seen crossing the border illegally to Creta but came back on the same day.”

“Are all the passes to Creta still closed?” Lan Fan asked, showing a degree of eagerness at the mention of the country.

“Looks like it. At least I've never heard of the quarantine being lifted. I remember there was a decline in the number infected, but as far as I know Grumman hadn't been confident enough to open the passes again after Bradley declared them illegal to broach.”

“How about this?” Lan Fan asked, lifting a piece of paper not written in Ling's handwriting, but Edward's. It was a short report of all the questions Chu had asked him and Winry during their first interview with him. “Questions about Auto-Mail's discretion on assassinations. And once again, the topic of government personnel come up.”

“So he's definitely interested in _something_ or _someone_ in the government,” Rosé mused. “Though that doesn't narrow it down one bit. Even though Bradley's regime is over, Amestris remains very militaristic. We have more State Militants than we have doctors in this country.”

“Do we know anything important that Grumman plans to do some time soon?” Lan Fan asked.

“There are several. Consolidating a treaty with Aerugo, finalizing a free-trade agreement with Xing, drawing a relief plan to help alleviate the poverty here in Amestris after the Sanitary Movement. A man like him tends to be very busy.”

Lan Fan sighed. “That doesn't narrow it down either. Chu could be interested in any or even _all_ of those things. A treaty with Aerugo means that war is over, and people won't have to come to him for funding their efforts. Same with the relief plans. A free-trade policy with Xing could affect his business if we're going to open up the market to about two hundred million people.”

“We're getting ahead of ourselves,” Ling stated. “The point I think we've established is that my brother showed up there possibly for a specific purpose other than to spy on us, and now that Chu is not going to receive what he wanted from him, there could be consequences.”

A short silence blanketed the three of them, and Ling was convinced that they were all wondering in their own way how those consequences could manifest themselves. A shudder ran through Ling, so he collected his notes into a neat pile, and closed his laptop. He stood up and headed for the stairs, then called out behind him.

“Ms. Lan Fan, I believe we have a date tonight at a special, fancy mailbox. Better get ready!”

He changed his clothes and took with him the backpack he rarely parted with, then met her at the garage after she checked on her grandfather again. Leaving him to Rosé's good care, Ling and Lan Fan entered his car, and drove out of Dublith.

“Aren't you a little underdressed?” Ling teased, making a show of eying Lan Fan's knitted sweater and faded jeans. “I plan to have a very good night, don't you?”

She snickered, “Well the jeans came from your mother, for your information. I would hardly say that she has poor taste. You know what? Are you always like this?” she shifted in her seat so that she was facing him directly.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like _this_ ,” she said, waving to the empty space between them. “Flirty, or I don't know what to call it. All I know is that if Grandpa was here, he would box your ears.”

Ling laughed. “Well, you tell me! Is this flirting?”

“You tell _me_!” she exclaimed. “You're the one who's been on 'like, two dates' here,” she added, and Ling could only laugh more as he remembered what he'd told her the first time they met.

“Yes, and one of them was with you,” he answered, nudging her playfully with his elbow. “I'm still not over you considering that night a one night stand.”

She snorted. “You consider _that_ a date?”

“Well, we were alone and we had some very intense moments, wouldn't you say? Heart-pounding, and I swear my palms wouldn't stop sweating!” he grinned back at her. “Much more exciting than my first date. Which, if you must know since it seems as if you're in the business of digging up my romantic past, was back in tenth grade with a girl who shared sushi with me. It was a special bento box, mind you, not the cheap ones.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” she asked.

“Huh? No,” he paused, stealing a glance at her, before looking back on the road. She was silent for some moments, and Ling couldn't help but wonder what was running through her head.

“Lan Fan, do you like to read books?” he asked finally.

“Read?” she repeated, sounding surprised that he followed all his teasing with something that might actually sound like a serious question. “Well, I suppose, yes.”

“Then I don't know what to tell you,” he replied. “Fictional guys would surely have something interesting to say when their love life sucks, some kind of emotional baggage from the past or a quirk that spikes up their sex appeal. You know, maybe a girlfriend he was prepared to marry died, or maybe girls couldn't see past his good looks that they never tried to get to know him for who he really is. You know, all those cliché stuff. But in real life... at least for me, life just happens. Romance just hasn't been a very big part of it, and I don't see why I have to question that.”

Lan Fan remained quiet. After the minutes stretched, he laughed again to ease the awkwardness.

“Aww, now you're disappointed, aren't you?” he accused teasingly.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Not at all!”

“You think I'm boring, emasculated!”

“Absolutely not!” Lan Fan insisted. “I understand. Really, I do, so you don't have to feel bad about anything.” She gave him a playful pat on the shoulder, as if reassuring him that he wasn't _that_ much of a loser, but the smile she gave him was quite sincere.

She settled back in her seat, and began taking out money from her wallet to insert into an envelope for the deposit. His eye caught on an embroidered initial at the corner of the pouch. It was a very popular trend in Xing; people liked to embroider their names on things like fans or handkerchiefs, sometimes even pillows and bath towels.

“Is that your wallet?” he asked.

“Actually it was my father's,” Lan Fan said. “One of the things I have from him. It's surprisingly sturdy to have made it through all these years.”

Ling looked at the stitching again. “It's G.Y. Tseng. You don't carry his last name?” He remembered the e-mail he received from Ed of the name of the girl Winry found from Auto-Mail who could potentially be his employee. He remembered it distinctly, because after he met her, he couldn't get her name out of his mind, and because he had stared at her signature in awe after she signed his offer of employment.

She cringed, and shrugged her left shoulder. “Zhang is... just my _legal_ last name here in Amestris.”

“...legal? You mean–”

“When Grandpa and I left Tong Hua, Amestris didn't recognize it as an independent state,” Lan Fan explained. “Remember the revolt that occurred after your grandfather died? You said that your father lost his claim to the throne. There were many other nobles vying for it too. And the Xiao clan won, with the clan chief's first son calling himself national leader now.” Ling nodded. He knew that, and even knew of the widespread confusion of whether the Xingese should call their leader a king or a president – the nation was now striving towards a democratic government, but many aspects of its governance still bore the marks of the Imperial era.

“You want to know how the Xiao really won? They were such underdogs,” Lan Fan continued. “But they conglomerated the support of outlying states. Tong Hua had been requesting independence for several decades, and in exchange for my peoples' military support and espionage during the civil war, the Xiao promised our independence. And they gave it to us. Unfortunately, when our independence was granted, Tong Hua crumbled under the feet of squabbling warlords from different tribes, more used to the art of war than art of peace. The Empire had kept them well-behaved for centuries, but...”

“And that's why your family fled?”

“Yes,” she said. “The Yaos wouldn't take us in, even though my family served them for generations. Many of them view us as traitors for separating. I was two. Mother and father didn't make it through the journey here.”

She was quiet for a while, fingering the red embroidery on the wallet. If she had been so young, Ling wondered whether she even remembered anything about her parents.

“But when we got to Amestris, they wouldn't grant us citizenship after our refugee status expired. They didn't accept the papers we have from the newly established Tong Hua, so... well, so Grandpa asked someone's help to forge papers that make it seem like we hailed from southern Xing.”

Lan Fan was an illegal immigrant. Damn, the more he got to know this girl, the more tragic she seemed! Dealing with displacement and lost parents would have been bad enough. But not being granted a citizenship, and losing her arm in a freak incident, then taking care of a sickly grandfather...

“And here I am, complaining about my non-existent love life!” he exclaimed with disbelief. “I never thought I was so insensitive. I'm such a jerk!”

Lan Fan chuckled. “No, please, by all means, cry over your love life. Weep to some Drachman love songs. I'm not here to put your life into perspective.”

When they reached the 24/7 post office, Ling accompanied Lan Fan inside. He watched as she placed her five thousand sens deposit inside the mail box, gave him a hopeful look, and locked the box.

“Then we wait,” he said softly, to which she nodded.

-o-

Riza placed the headphones over her ears, adjusting the band across her head. Beside her, Fuery tinkered with his machines and computers, as they waited for their other companions to join them in the little trailer. On the couch at the back of the trailer lounged the Elrics' tigress of an adoptive mother, looking as if she would eat away the five blocks separating the trailer and the office that Henry Chu had chosen for their second interview. Riza could hold her own in a fight, but even she wouldn't be fool enough to deliberately cross paths with Izumi, especially when she was all wound up with tension.

“How are we doing there, Fuery?” Riza leaned over to watch her young companion adjust the metrics on his software and turn the tuners on his receiving device. A low buzzing came through Riza's headphones, and a moment later, she could hear a whispered conversation ensue on the other side. Winry was talking, and Ed seemed far off. After another adjustment, Winry's voice came clearer, and Edward sounded much closer.

“Got 'em!” Fuery said excitedly, just as the door to the trailer opened up, and in came the two young Xingese teens. Ling gave a good-natured wave at Izumi, who merely nodded to acknowledge his existence. Lan Fan squirmed behind him, but after noticing Riza, she headed over to the chair beside the Lieutenant.

“How are things going?” Lan Fan asked.

“They've just been invited into the office,” Riza answered. “We installed a communicating device on Winry and Edward. We can hear what's going on around them, and they'll be able to hear us if we use this microphone,” she pointed to the one near Fuery. “Henry Chu thinks he's got the upperhand asking all the questions. But if there's one thing I learned from the Colonel is that one can find out as much information based on the questions asked. We'll be helping Winry and Edward navigate through the interrogation game.”

Riza remembered the worried phone call they received a week ago from Ling, who asked for several trustworthy State militants to keep an eye on some Auto-Mailers. Ling related the events of Edward and Winry's interview with his father, and how they were forced to reveal the identities of some of their fellow members in the underground market. They were able to deploy some younger ranked officers to help keep tabs, and Winry also rounded up some folks within Auto-Mail who knew a thing or two about keeping safe.

So far there were no incidents other than the unexpected death during the first hoax. But even that was unnerving enough. Mustang had told Havoc to write it off as foul play. The residents of Metso were highly uneasy about finding a man murdered in their quiet little town, but with clear evidence that there were several gangs up and about the night before, Mustang decided to blame it on the Jesters. The residents of Metso were pacified when Mustang offered them the protection of several officers at the town gate.

Riza didn't know how many more men they could ask to help without revealing accidentally what they were up to. There were those who were loyal to them as friends – Armstrong, Ross, Catalina, Brosh – and who would probably not question their methods even if they seemed a little oblique. However, one of the lynchpins of Operation Greed was that no one outside of the operation was to discover that Mustang's little entourage willingly conspired with the black-markets. It would be traitorous, and they would sooner be sent to jail with ruined reputations than they would get the chance to prove their intention of freeing the Amestrian government from Henry Chu's monopolistic chokehold.

Their team was given a few hours break from their investigation in Rush Valley, giving Fuery and herself enough time to travel east to the new meeting place that Chu picked for his second interview with Winry and Edward. They would regroup again the next day with whatever discoveries they made today.

The door to the trailer opened again, and Ridel LeCoulte stepped inside, looking a little disheveled.

“Sorry, I'm late! Satella is visiting the doctor and I couldn't find a babysitter quickly for the baby,” he adjusted his glasses on his nose, before taking the last seat in the trailer. From his pack he took out his laptop, and mentioned for Ling to come beside him.

“I created a program,” he said. “It makes use of a learning algorithm that gives us several areas of interest based on a subject and a context. I've fed it all of the data that Ling gave me on his father, and with more data coming in from the interview, the program will give us suggestions on what Chu might be after.”

“Can't we make the same deductions based on what we hear and read?” Izumi asked, crossing her arms across her chest.

Ridel blushed. “Well, sure. After all, we can never make computers do things that us humans don't already know how to do. But it streamlines the process, and I've added a bias parameter. We can clear it so that it analyzes the data with no bias to a particular area. I'd say that's a helpful advantage! Not something we can exactly do to ourselves, don't you think? For many people, they only notice what they want to see,” he laughed softly, but Izumi just shrugged, regarding his laptop with a dubious expression.

“Gadgets today, honestly,” Izumi said. “I'd say our instincts are more reliable.”

They all quieted when Ed's voice, clear as if he was standing in the trailer with them, emanated from the speaker.

“You don't need another man this time, Chu. We've shown you how _well-behaved_ we could be last week,” he said, half spitting out the word and surely remembering how it felt to be under the power of someone so singlemindedly cruel.

“Ed, relax,” Riza whispered into the microphone.

“I think he's trying to behave normally,” Lan Fan suggested.

“That's right. If he's _too_ calm, Chu would suspect something,” Fuery added.

They listened as Chu ushered his guests to sit down. He wasted no time drilling them again on the inner workings of Auto-Mail. He asked about the most common requests that Auto-Mail received (job matching), how they expanded and maintained their network (word of mouth and web crawling), and how influential they were across the border (not much). Riza told Winry and Edward how to fashion their answers so it would look like they were telling all of the truth, while still withholding information they would have recklessly revealed otherwise. Izumi often had to calm Ed down, though how she managed to do so using threats of eviction and missing dinners, Riza could not fathom.

“Have you had any requests concerning Creta?” Chu asked casually. The connection was so clear that Riza could hear the pat-patting sound of the man typing on his keyboard.

Creta was a sensitive subject even among the governing body of Amestris. Everyone agreed that Bradley's measure against the plague that broke out almost a decade ago had been executed poorly. The barricade against both entry and exit into the country prevented Amestrians from learning of improvements or degradation in their western neighbour. But Bradley wasn't the worst part. The most embarrassing blight was how they lost, during their revolt against Bradley, the only hope of making things right. At the time, it was the lesser evil, but Colonel Mustang still hid his face in his hands whenever the subject was brought up.

Riza leaned in to the microphone. “Tell him first only of requests you received from people who want to know when the Amestrian government intends to lift the security protocols on the border.” She'd noticed that it was better to mete out their answers, because Chu tended to withhold feedback when he got what he wanted. But when he didn't, he pursued the subject with vigorous intent, giving them a better idea of which direction his interest lies.

Winry repeated what Riza said, and before she could even finish, Chu began cutting her off.

“How about movement between the countries?” he interrupted.

Riza gave Ridel a meaningful look but the young man was already hoarding the information away.

“Several weeks ago, a girl came to the network asking for medical attention for a cousin from Creta,” Winry explained in a level tone. “She'd smuggled in the cousin using the bluffs along Xoporor.”

Riza heard the click-clacking of keyboard keys through the line.

“Now let me ask you something a little more... open ended,” he continued. “One of the countermeasures against the black market that Grumman plans to use is to sign a free-trade agreement with Xing. Surely Auto-Mail has heard of that. With cheaper goods coming from the East, Amestrians won't need to resort to the black markets to cheat market prices. What are you going to do then?”

“The free-trade policy pertains to goods only, does it not?” Winry answered. “Auto-Mail doesn't compete directly with those businesses. Ours is a service. It's true that perhaps this agreement will improve the economy so much that people wouldn't have to resort to under-the-table sources of income. And to me, that is a good thing. Auto-Mail started out as a way to help people. If you think I will be upset that they will no longer need my help, then you're wrong. What's important is that people will have stable jobs and they will be able to take care of themselves and their families.”

Chu laughed after Winry finished. “I like you. So noble, like the typical Amestrian you are. How do you people do it? Scythe down all those who are different from you and still feel righteous enough to say that you're doing the world a service? Colour me utterly impressed.”

“What are you saying?” Ed growled.

“Calm down, Ed!” Ling said into the microphone. “He's baiting you. He's like that. I swear the man was already trolling when he came out of his mother.”

Chu answered Ed, and to Riza's relief he didn't sound irritated with Edward's attitude. “All I'm saying is that I'm more used to the Xingese way of politicking: subtle but honest. We don't condescend to those we oppress under the banner of 'justice', then act as if they owe us even more for at least being nice. When we don't like someone, we let them know we don't like them. Don't frown at me like that, young man! You make yourself look constipated.

“Here's a scenario to think about. You are in a speeding bus full of people, and it's out of control and heading towards a cliff. Suppose you could magically stop the bus from its inevitable demise by throwing out one of the passengers. What would you do?”

“Huh, easy,” Ed answered. “I'll throw myself out, which will save everyone else in the bus, and then I'll find the bastard who screwed up the bus and beat him up!”

“The bus is _speeding_ , and you'll throw yourself out?” Chu asked.

“Hey, this is a world where magic exists, isn't it? You said so.”

Riza couldn't help but grin. Edward may have a foul mouth, but he also had a wise one. Which was probably part of why he was so annoying all the time.

Chu snickered, and they heard some shuffling across the line.

“You're a smart boy, I'll admit that. And you're right. In a fantasy world, it would be easy to figure out what to do. But in the real world, that isn't always the case.”

“It's a corrupt man who would let his environment shape his principles,” Edward retorted.

“And it's a selfish man who would expect the world to accommodate him,” Chu shot back. “I'll cut it short today. You two have been very good sources of amusement, but I have real work to get back to.”

Riza heard Winry inquire about the hostage in the next room, and Chu lazily dismissed him before bidding the two youngsters farewell. The sharpshooter doubted that the man would make it out of the building alive, since Chu was the greedy kind of person who would begrudge others if they knew the same things he did. Information on Auto-Mail was a collateral Chu secured in exchange for millions of sens. Even if the man couldn't hear what the three were talking about in the adjacent room, she doubted Chu would take the risk.

But it's better if Winry and Ed didn't share her speculations. They did a great job handling this situation for now.

Ling was typing notes on his mobile phone, while looking over Ridel's software. “Well, we certainly know he's interested in Creta and the trade negotiations with Xing. Grumman is related to both, so perhaps that's why he's been keeping a close eye on the president.”

“But what's with the hypothetical questions near the end?” Lan Fan asked.

“He's alluding to some moralistic principle,” Izumi answered. “At least that's how I saw it. We all know he's planning something. People like him don't just sit around counting their money all day. Whatever it is, he's trying to justify it in his head.”

“We can bring it up again when we regroup with everyone,” Riza said, standing up from her chair, beginning to gather her belongings. “We need to have a meeting soon anyway to talk about merging the second hoax with the final stage of Operation Greed.” Ever since Edward notified them last week about the nature of his interviews with the leader of XYZ Ltd., Ling proposed to shorten the span of Operation Greed 2.0. He couldn't allow his friends to risk their lives – nor their sanity – every week that they wait before the operation finished.

But squishing down the last two stages would mean that they have to plan for a grander scale of coordination in half as much time. Riza didn't feel good about it, but she was much less comfortable with allowing Winry and Edward to remain as Chu fodder.

Ling and Lan Fan left with Izumi, and LeCoult made his way back to his home separately. Winry suggested that she and Ed didn't make contact with any of them after the interview, so they would have to retrieve the communication devices later on.

“Well, Fuery, let's get back to the Colonel.”

-o-

The days went by with coiled anticipation for Lan Fan. Ling experienced his first wave of consecutive assignment due dates, and with less than two weeks before the predicted finale of Operation Greed 2.0, the boy could hardly get a good night's sleep. She offered to help him with his homework, typing up his reports after he'd outlined them, organizing his notes, summarizing course readings.

When everyone met again to discuss their plans, they narrowed down the list of Auto-Mail volunteers whom Colonel Mustang's entourage was responsible for sniffing out. Five was the maximum, and included in it was the Tattler, who would reveal the location of the money that Chu provided as well as the contract that XYZ Ltd. made with the leaders of Auto-Mail. Hunter Manos, the young man that accompanied them to Metso the previous week, eagerly volunteered for the position, saying he looked forward to seeing the faces of the State militants once they find out that their beloved private loaner collaborated against them. Since no one else wanted to deal with military officers not included in their little game, Winry gave Manos the privilege and risk.

Lan Fan thought it would seem too easy. Auto-Mailers were some of the best operators in the underworld. To be caught by the military dogs in a duration of three weeks would make them look not as good as they were reputed to be, or it would make the government appear quite efficient. Too efficient, perhaps. But then again, Mustang had a reputation from the Sanitary Movement already. Maybe nobody would be too surprised.

On the Wednesday after the first hoax, she and Ling returned to the mailbox to find out that her grandfather's medicine hadn't arrived yet. Grandpa Fu was getting worse, and Rosé had finished the bottle. They had to take him to the hospital before they went to the post office, because his fever turned dangerously high, and even though the hospital didn't have any Red Stone, any medical assistance would help at this point.

She was hoping so badly that the bottle would be there, that even when she'd scanned the entirety of the mailbox with her eyes and hand and found nothing but cold steel, she couldn't quite believe it. She closed the mailbox and opened it again, and she knew she looked so silly standing there staring into empty space, but Ling remained patient and kind.

“We'll come back tomorrow,” he said, patting her on the back. “Maybe he's just busy. I imagine he would be with that kind of product on his hands. You said it usually comes within five to seven days, right? It's only been five nights.”

Lan Fan knew that, but when they got home, she still felt dejected.

When the seventh day approached and it still wasn't there, Lan Fan felt like screaming. This was the worst possible time for something like this to happen. While everyone else was finalizing the details of the operation, she sat chewing her fingernails, barely listening as Ling related her duties to her.

“Lan Fan?” he called out, nudging her a little. They were sitting on his bed, like the king and queen of essay drafts surrounded by their textbook peasants.

“I'm sorry, Ling, what were you saying?”

He gave her a sympathetic smile, but there were lines around his eyes that told her he was tired and would appreciate it if she paid him a little bit more attention.

“Well, I suppose it's okay. We don't have a big role in this latter half of the operation. Everything hinges on our volunteers and on Mustang's team.”

“Right,” Lan Fan replied, trying to clear her head of the horrifying what-ifs plaguing her mind. She felt light-headed and numb. “What do I have to do?”

“Not much. We're just on-call. We will be monitoring the progress of the chase through communication devices similar to the ones Winry and Edward used on Saturday. If anything goes wrong, we will try to help them.”

“Is there anything salvageable if anything _does_ go wrong?” Lan Fan asked.

“It all depends on what goes wrong, I guess,” Ling said, and he pulled a map over her lap. “The most complex part of the chase is to coordinate the escape of the volunteers, excepting for Hunter Manos, and the pursuit of the State militants. Anything can interfere with this process though, from heavy traffic to unpredictable pedestrians. Even though Falman has memorized even the minutest details from the intervals of traffic lights to the busiest café sidewalks, there are still many more variables that we can't predict. This is the part that the higher ranking generals would scrutinize the most, so if there was a clear chance that Mustang could have caught an Auto-Mailer but didn't, it would arouse suspicion.”

“They won't be happy that there's one who is willing to yap?”

“They would be, but they also care about the process.” He then pointed to a spot on the map deep in the maze of South City. “Our job is to create diversions if they're needed. If an Auto-Mailer is impeded by, say, traffic, we have to make sure that the the officer who is pursuing them is also held back. We'd have to be rather creative about it though. Edward, Winry, Alphonse, Mei, Paninya, and many others are going to be on-call as well, so we also have to co-ordinate amongst ourselves which of us can act the most efficiently given the location and the situation.”

Lan Fan nodded. “And I guess I'm supposed to bodyguard you at the same time?”

“Well you know,” Ling shrugged, giving her an impish grin. “Just make sure I don't get run over by a truck or something.”

“That's funny, because that would be the perfect diversion,” she joked, and Ling let out a loud laugh. When he stopped, he looked much more refreshed, and she realized that they all probably just needed a good laugh. The lines around his eyes eased a little, and small smile remained on his lips. He reached out to play with the fringe of hair by her cheek.

“Hey, don't worry too much, okay?” he said. “I'm sure things will be fine. They always work out in the end, right?”

Lan Fan knew he was referring more to her grandfather than Operation Greed.

“Do you think he might have raised the price and is waiting for the remainder?” Ling asked.

Lan Fan shook her head. “No, usually he leaves a note when that's the case. The several times he raised the price, he gave me the bottle, but told me to include the difference with the next deposit.” It had given her a wave of despair every time she saw that note, but now it came to her that she would have rather seen a ragged piece of paper with his chicken scratch than an empty vault.

With a flash of impulsiveness, Lan Fan wondered what would happen if she just told Ling everything. About the reason her grandfather was sick, about why she was so poor, what she was doing at the site of Operation Greed 1.0 two years ago. What was the worst case scenario?

“Ling?”

“What is it?”

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he knew. He might not let her participate in the final stage of OG2.0. Or he might hand her over to the police. Eh... still, he wouldn't let anything happen to Grandpa Fu, would he? Fu was innocent. It had all been just her.

She took a deep breath. “Look, the reason you shouldn't blame yourself about my arm is because–”

_Ring._

Ling's cellphone went off with the funky upbeat ringtone he assigned to Edward. He picked it up, mouthing a 'One sec' to her, before giving Ed his full attention. It appeared as if Ed wanted to confirm some things for the day of the chase. She watched with an amused smile as Ling animatedly went over the details, answering and revising some of the plans, and it dawned on her that the worst case scenario was not that he would have her arrested; the worst thing would be that he would hate her – this smiling, exaggerated clownish genius would not want to be her friend anymore, and for reasons borne out of longing and loneliness, she knew she couldn't take the risk.

She felt the stab of regret, knowing that things might have been smoother if she'd just told her entire story in the first place, because at least she wouldn't need to rectify more than a month's worth of friendship built on what some might consider lies.

Now exposing her secret could cost her one of the things she'd always dreamed of as a child.

_Snap out of it, Lan Fan!_ She reprimanded herself. Everything she did was for her grandfather. Yes, Ling's friendship was important, Ling himself was important, but she could not ignore the one thing that had sustained her her entire life, the one who nourished her and loved her. And despite knowing that Fu would abhor being the reason she would do the wrong thing, she didn't know how to untangle herself from this web she created.

“Hey, you were saying?” Ling asked, and his gentle hand on her shoulder brought her back to the present. His phone was carelessly lying on a tower of books.

She stared back at him, his narrow eyes shining with eagerness and warmth. Eh... no, she couldn't do this.

So she just went with a different truth. “I just wanted to say that you shouldn't blame yourself about my arm because you're a good person who shouldn't burden himself with things that aren't in his control.”

His lips curled in an amused smile. “Aww, thanks Lan Fan. Coming from someone like you, I'll consider that almost as a love confession, eh?”

She rolled her eyes, but allowed herself a laugh.

When the next day came but the bottle of Red Stone still didn't, Lan Fan tried to remain calm. They still checked every day after Ling's classes ended, and she began to feel bad for dragging him there daily, but the necessity of improving her grandfather's health never vanished.

Finally, on the eve of Operation Greed 2.2, as dubbed by Ling, he apologized to her that they might not have the time to detour before getting to South City. “We have a lot to prepare for before the pursuit begins at dawn.”

Lan Fan nodded. “Is it alright if I'll take a cab? I won't be long. I'll just check it, and come back. That way, you can begin with preparations, and then you'll just fill me in when I get there.”

He shrugged. “Sure, I don't see why not. You'd only be missing two hours max. Keep your cellphone open though. It's good to keep the communication going.”

“Alright,” she replied with a sigh of relief. She was half afraid he would refuse her request, seeing that this was _the_ day, the single most important day of the entire operation. “I'll try to regroup with you as quickly as I can.”

Hoisting her pack over her shoulder, she set out a few minutes earlier than Ling. He gave her cash for the cab, enough to get her to the post office then into the heart of the city. Earlier that day she checked on her grandfather at the hospital. Although he wasn't getting worse, it didn't seem as if he was getting better either.

She tried to meditate during the cab ride to the post office to clear her head. Even if the Red Stone wasn't there, she would go to Ling and help with the operation as best as she could. Then when Chu was dealt with, well... hopefully all her problems would go away.

And then she could tell Ling everything. Maybe he would even forgive her.

Still, she couldn't calm her racing heart as the cab rolled into the driveway of the post office. She could almost dance to its beat as she exited the car and then entered the small building. The employee on shift today gave her a greeting smile, but Lan Fan just nodded in return. She walked up to her mailbox, pushed in the key and unlocked the door. Inside, she saw a Red Stone bottle.

But it was empty.

An icy coldness pooled in her stomach. Her head buzzed with a dreading so thick she couldn't think a single thought. Slowly she reached out, retrieving the bottle from the darkness of the box, hoping against all odds that maybe the medicine just wasn't red anymore; perhaps it's just transparent now.

But there was nothing in the bottle. She opened it, and it truly was empty.

Finding it hard to swallow, she looked inside the mailbox again and found a small slip of paper. She took it out, unfolded it with shaking fingers, and almost passed out with what was written in it.

_'Sorry, but you didn't think it would last forever, did you?'_

For some moments, all she could do was stand there, staring at the words, unable to register their meaning. The place felt surreal, and a surge of hope shot through her when she thought that maybe she was just dreaming. Maybe she would wake up, go downstairs and find Ling and Yuna goofing about in the kitchen, complaining about not having found a maid yet.

Thinking about it made her lose her grip on the bottle, and it shattered on the linoleum floor of the post office.

“Something the matter?” the lady asked from behind the counter. She was eying the broken glass with consternation.

Lan Fan snapped out of her haze, and came back into focus. She stared back at the words, finding from somewhere more primal inside her the ability to concentrate and understand the meaning of what just happened. She crumpled the paper, and took out her cellphone. The first number she dialed was Rosé's.

“Is Grandpa okay?” Lan Fan asked, not bothering with niceties.

“When I left the hospital an hour ago, he was,” the girl answered. “But visiting hours are over, and I have a lot of homework for school, so I just came home.”

“That's okay, Rosé. Thanks for everything.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Uh, no,” Lan Fan answered, at least not for Rosé. “Don't worry about anything.”

She finished the call, and began to dial Ling's. Then she stopped. Ling would wonder what's wrong, and Lan Fan didn't know how she could even begin to explain. The truth was that most likely she wouldn't be able to. And that would make him worry. Worse, it might distract him. They couldn't afford that right now.

She glanced at the time flashing on the screen of her phone. 11:37 pm. It's still a long way away from dawn. She approached the car waiting for her at the driveway, and went inside.

“So, to downtown South City, right Miss?” the cab driver confirmed.

Lan Fan had two options. Go back to Ling, risk the possibility that her distraction and desperation would ruin the operation for everyone else. Or she could settle this herself, and even if she didn't make it back in time, it wasn't like she was a pivotal part of Operation 2.2 anyway. She would hardly be any help to Ling if she was this agitated, wouldn't she? She might even put him in danger by perturbing him...

“No, actually. Change of plans. Let's go back up North. Go to Tobha.”

-o-

In the hours that ticked by, Ling had attached the tracking bug to his wrist, placed the communication device on his molar, checked and double-checked all the intersection points where the Auto-Mailers would encounter the military officers. He had gone twice to the location of the money and the contract, ensuring they were in their proper places, and then back again to the café where he was to pose as a lounging student cramming for a test in the morning.

And still no Lan Fan.

He'd called her enough times to make his service provider regret offering him the unlimited call plan, but they all ended in the same way: a string of endless rings. He called his mother, but she hadn't heard from Lan Fan either. He called Rosé, and the drowsy girl explained that Lan Fan wanted to confirm her grandfather's health a few hours ago, a little before midnight.

That would have been around the time Lan Fan reached the mailbox. Something must have happened.

But why didn't she call him?

Ling looked at his wrist watch. 3:20 am. Where the _hell_ was Lan Fan?

He almost jumped out of his skin when a pair of hands covered his eyes. For a second he thought it might be Lan Fan horsing around, but that was impossible because Lan Fan _never_ horsed around, nor did she have two hands.

Slowly, the fingers pried themselves away, and leaning over his shoulder was Winry's smiling face.

“Hey Ling! Got a minute?”

“Oh Winry! Aren't you supposed to be in 4th District?”

“I am. I just wanted to talk to you for a bit before we begin.”

“Sure, what is it about?” Ling asked, piling up the books he brought along for his disguise as a crabby student.

“Is Lan Fan nearby?” Winry asked, looking around.

“Well she's supposed to be,” Ling answered, and explained what happened a few hours ago.

Winry looked nervous as she sat down in front of him. “This is not good. Do you want to stop the operation?”

“I thought about it,” Ling admitted. “But we're too far in at this point in the game. It'll complicate matters for Colonel Mustang, and I don't want to do that to him. Lan Fan doesn't really have a significant role in this, so if she doesn't show up, not much really changes.” Except, possibly, for his daydream of celebrating the news of their success with her.

“I hope she's okay, but I guess I'll take this opportunity to clarify some things. Alphonse mentioned something to me earlier,” Winry began. “You're curious about Lan Fan's grandfather's medicine?”

“I am,” Ling admitted. “Has he found out anything new? Mei told me a few days ago that the sample I gave them was useless. I was hoping to give them a fresh batch to work with, but the medicine hasn't arrived yet. It's put Lan Fan on edge.”

“Mei said she couldn't find anything indicative about it?”

“Well, what she said was more like, 'found barest trace of hydrochloride, ibuprofen, some strange cellular buildup, blah-blah-blah, more science stuff, it's probably some strange bacteria from your disgusting feet, next time give me something real to work with'. Uh, yeah.”

“Alphonse said you called it the Red Stone,” Winry said.

“That's what Lan Fan calls it too.”

The blonde girl in front of him frowned in confusion. “That can't really be true. You see, my parents helped _create_ the Red Stone.”

Ling froze. “Wait, _what_? _”_

Winry looked down and toyed with one of Ling's pencils. “I wish you came to me first, but I can understand why you went straight to Mei and Alphonse. You wouldn't exactly know that I have direct knowledge about something like that, and it's not like I'm also allowed to go yapping about it whenever I want.”

“W-wait, hold on,” Ling said. “What are you saying? What _is_ the Red Stone? I thought it was just some slang for a black market deal, which was obviously how Lan Fan was getting it.”

“What it was intended to be is a cure-for-all medicine. My parents worked on a highly confidential project for the government before they died. The goal was to create something that can cure any kind of ailment. There was a whole team of doctors who were involved in the research. In the end, they engineered a special type of cell that can learn peculiarities within the human body and decipher which of those anomalies are the sources of the sickness.”

Ling remembered when he and Lan Fan were eating lunch at his campus and she said that she didn't know what was making her grandfather sick. At that time he just thought she was lying, but it could be true. If the Red Stone was meant to cure anything, Lan Fan didn't have to know what was wrong with her grandfather, since the medicine would take care of whatever it happened to be, regardless.

“I don't know much about it myself, but after the Sanitary Movement, Lieutenant Hawkeye and Colonel Mustang visited me one day, and told me that although my parents and their co-workers managed to make one prototype of the medicine, the government lost it during the rebellion.”

“ _One_ prototype?” Ling asked. “Lan Fan has been giving Fu this medicine monthly for the past two years.”

“Yes, so you can see why I'm dubious.”

Ling shook his head. Maybe it was just a coincidence. The antidote was red, so it was likely someone would name it that. Everyone knew of the myth of the Philosopher's Stone and its other synonyms. Anyone who wanted to make money off of some incredibly powerful medicine would not shy away from using that name, especially as a marketing strategy. Besides, if Lan Fan was using it for years, why was Fu still sick? If what Winry said was true, then shouldn't the Red Stone have restored Fu's health already?

“Look, when Lan Fan comes back, let me speak to her,” Winry said, standing up to leave. “I think there's a lot more to that medicine of hers than even _she_ thinks she knows about.”

Ling snorted. “Yes, please, talk to her. She might open up to _you_ about it. Goodness knows I've been trying pry some information from her ever since who-knows-when.”

“But Ling, you have to understand this: if the medicine she's using to cure her grandfather really is the same Red Stone my parents worked on, then someone out there is making a lot of money off of it. We've got an epidemic in the west, an ebbing war in the south, a harsh dessert to the east. And you of all people know that when there's a lot of money, there's a lot of stake. Lan Fan could be dealing with something really, really dangerous, which might be what's keeping her mouth stitched.”

“Are you saying we shouldn't trust her?”

“I'm saying we need to help her, because she could be in over her head.” And with that, Winry turned to return to her post, promising him that she'd help confront Lan Fan later.

When dawn approached and Mustang rang the alarm to initiate the pursuit, Ling opened his laptop and watched the dots appear one by one on the tracking program they used to determine if everyone was in place. His own dot appeared where he expected it to be. Reluctantly, he searched for Lan Fan's tracker, hoping that perhaps she'd turned it on since he last checked, but she came up blank. He slapped the desk in disappointment.

“Cramming not getting you anywhere?” a voice asked, and Ling looked up to see a barista opening up the café for the early rush hour.

“Eh... not really,” he said, and turned back to his laptop. Well, at least his disguise was working well.

He looked back at his phone, wondering if he should try another phone call to Lan Fan. The fear of hearing those rings were starting to overcome his desire to hear her voice. Instead, he dialed his mother's phone.

“Before you ask, I took an emergency day off from work today,” his Ma told him even before he could get in a 'Hello'. “And yes, I'm on my way to look for Lan Fan.”

“Oh, thanks Ma! You're the best.”

He felt a little appeased after hearing that. He also tried telling himself that Lan Fan had been taking care of herself for years, and he doubted she could lose that kind of survival instinct within the few hours that she was away from him. Now... what he needed to do _now_ was focus on the work in which he had invested so much of himself, of his time and of his money. He wasn't the only one with the stakes here. Everyone else who had something to lose had placed their lot in, called in the bets, and expected him to pull through. He couldn't disappoint them. Besides, what would it mean if he failed yet again?

No, now wasn't the time for worry. It was the time for action.

He pushed Lan Fan's absence from his mind, and buckled down in his seat. He connected his communication device with the central hub where everyone's connection pooled into. Immediately the voices of his comrades blasted in his earpiece, and he had to block some of them before he drove himself crazy with loud gibberish.

“Ling, you finally in?” he heard Edward whisper in his ear.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “Sorry if I can't be louder than this, but I can't afford to look like I'm talking to myself.”

“You are a freshman in college, doing last minute studying for a test. If someone sees you talking to yourself, they will understand, don't worry.”

They set up the scenario that the five volunteers were engaged in an early morning administrative session for Auto-Mail; since three of them were Winry's co-admins, it wasn't too hard to make it look like the scene was legit. Ling watched as the five blue dots occupying the office, which Edward rented out for this purpose, dispersed suddenly into five different directions.

So, the lair had been apprehended, as evident by the four red dots that began surrounding the building. The two other dots, who Ling knew to be Fuery and Falman, were lingering by a side street.

As instructed, one of the dots began to approach the side of the city that Ling was responsible for monitoring. Within ten minutes, he saw the figure of the young lady jogging on the sidewalk, and heard the distinct siren of a military cab pursuing after her. She made eye contact with him briefly, but he continued to look preoccupied with interest at the cars trying to make way for the military cab. He knew that he had to try and act like everyone else was acting, and since the girl was wearing workout gear, not a lot of people suspected that she was whom the officers were after.

There was a cab waiting for the girl by the side of the café. They paid the driver in advance to take her out of the vicinity and up north. When the girl got inside, and the cab began to drive away along the eastern route, a bicyclist tried to run the red light, and crashed against the side of the car.

_Ugh,_ Ling thought. _Why do I always have to deal with rogue bicyclists?_

He turned to his laptop and routed his communicating device to the girl. “Ahney, get out of the car. I have a metropass in my bag. Use it to hop onto a northbound subway train. I'll tell Al to meet you at 7th District.”

Ling noticed that there was an old pedestrian who was trying to finish crossing the street before a speeding car passed through the intersection, and he thought that helping him would be the perfect excuse to turn a blind eye on what was going to happen next.

By the time he'd helped the old man cross the remaining gap to the sidewalk, his backpack was gone, slung over Ahney's shoulder who was now at the end of the block.

“Hey!” he yelled. “That's mine, you second-rate thief! My metropass is in there!”

He made a show of being ballistically furious that he actually frightened the man he'd helped across the road into running away from him with surprising agility. The military cab rolled up next to the café, and the windows rolled down to allow Breda to ask where the girl had gone.

“The subway most likely!” Ling said, acting terribly annoyed. “She stole my bag! Go get her, what are you talking to _me_ for?”

After the commotion passed, Ling sat back down to analyze everyone's position. Breda was moving north, and though the girl's signal went out momentarily since she was below ground, Ling notified Al that he would be able to find her at the station by 7th District. Mustang and Hawkeye were heading east pursuing Manos; Falman was trudging southwest after two of the co-admins, and Havoc accompanied Fuery circling the largest mall in the city for the last conspirator.

Ling packed up, hailed a taxi, and changed locations where he could be more of use. But after that one contact with the Auto-Mailers, no one else seemed to need him. He stayed connected with Edward and Mustang mostly, sometimes Mei, but he didn't run into any more incidents. He found his hands sweating out of anticipation, hoping that maybe, maybe everything would work out and all their hard work and preparation would pay off.

He was beside himself when he saw the blue dots and one red dot converge in the right appointed place just outside of South City, where they had stored the millions of sens and the documents in a hideout. He crossed his fingers, as he waited for the call that would dismiss him and tell him that they were taking Manos to the police station.

His heart jumped to his throat when the Colonel's voice came through his earpiece. With a hand shaking from both anxiety and excitement, he tuned the device to better receive the signal.

“Hello, Mustang?”

“Ling, we have a problem.”

Ling's heart sunk. “Why, what's wrong?”

“The three million sens and the contract. They're not here. They're all gone.”

-o-

Henry Chu tried to suppress a powerful yawn as he reached his office at Tobha. Coming from a bumpy train ride from the norther part of East Area, his bones felt stiff, and his skin pasty after adjusting to the warmer temperatures down south. One of his advisers warned him not to cut across the agricultural fields of the east, but it was the fastest way. He didn't want to waste time going through Central Area too. Already, he felt himself lagging behind schedule, and he frowned in distaste at the rising sun that illuminated the front part of his office, though he didn't know if he disliked it more as a reminder of yet another new, dreary day, or because its light made his temples pound.

Damn, he didn't even get time to sleep.

But sleep was not a benefit that came with his job, not when he was the only one who even bothered to _care_ anymore. The rest of the continent teetered on the edge of sanity, and they were all enjoying it. Bah, let them enjoy it. What did he care? Bliss was for the ignorant.

He stepped a foot across the threshold between the main lobby and the stairs leading up to the front door. Immediately, he felt the hairs at the back of his neck rise in a muted sense of jeopardy. He scanned the interior of the building, though nothing looked amiss. The lights were on as he expected them to be; he always had some of his men look after his offices whenever he was gone. The place was clean, spotless in fact. There were guards standing by the wall adjacent to the door, heads slightly bowed in deference to him.

He turned around, looking through the streets, not knowing what he was searching for. The roads were empty this time of the dawn, just as they should be for a town the size of Tobha.

“Mr. Chu?” Rue spoke up beside him. “Is there something wrong?”

“Has there been any disturbances last night?” he asked the woman who was in charge of his security team for this particular office.

“There was a black out for the entire town last night,” she explained with a bitter voice that sounded like she was woeful to admit it. “It lasted precisely three minutes and fourteen seconds.”

He stared back at her, searching her eyes for any signs of treachery, but this woman had been loyal to him for many years, and the only reason he didn't punish her for the atrocious breach of his office some weeks ago was that there were other people, less useful, who bore the brunt of his anger. She looked back at him with the ease of someone who was used to staring danger in the eye and spitting in its face.

He resumed his entry into the building, and made his way up the stairs to his room. He was about to open the door, when he felt that distinct uneasiness again. Nobody else was in the hallway. But he knew better than to ignore it. One did not grow up as a prince of Xing without listening to their instincts, and right now his instincts were screaming for him to move away.

So he did, and he took a side stairs to the basement, a highly secure room where he stored some of his more confidential documents. The guards were standing beside the door, and they gave him a respectful nod. As soon as he'd scanned his fingerprint and he entered the lower ground, the discomforting pressure eased away.

He snickered. There was only one entry and one exit into this part of the building. There was no way –

A fist slammed into his left cheek, the force strong enough to send him crashing against a desk. He heard a crack on his side, and molten pain shot across his torso where his body met the edge of the table. He stumbled to his knees for a moment, though his intuition told his body to get up and assume a defensive position. But that one split-second was all his assailant needed to slam yet another blow against his head. Then another, and another, until he could hardly hear the sound of attack around him, so loud was the ringing in his ears.

He tried swivel away, his feet aiming for an angle that would swipe his attacker's footing from underneath them, but when he swung his legs around, they didn't bump against anything.

And yet the punches persisted, each one packing such strength that drove his breath from his lungs. He opened his eyes, but the objects falling from the desk prevented him from acquiring a clear view of whom he was against. It was dark in the room, and from the small glimpses he caught between the attacks, he could tell that his assailant was both wearing dark clothes and that they were really, _really_ quick.

There was something else. The style of the onslaught was remarkably Xingese. It wasn't a haphazardly trained street fighter he was up against, nor a tough, heavy-weaponed Amestrian militant. He smirked. He knew who this was. There was only one person who would visit him in such a manner.

And with that insight, he rolled to the right, grabbed a paperweight that had fallen from his desk, and threw it against her left side. He then brought up both his hands, one to catch her oncoming fist, and the other to deliver a timely cuff to her jaw. He applied enough force that she went sprawling on the marble floor, but she lithely summer-saulted back into a standing position.

Their fight halted, and against what little light that streamed through the tiny glass window of the door, he saw the familiar big, dark eyes regarding him with hatred.

“Hello Lan Fan,” he smiled.

“Chu,” she spat back. She was taut with unspent energy and outrage. “You owe me a bottle of Red Stone. Actually, make that two, since the last one you gave was botched.”

“Ah, was it, now?” Henry wanted to laugh, but found his sides protesting furiously. Still, it wasn't like he hadn't been under painful duress before. He looked aside, through the window of the door, and noticed that nobody was guarding it anymore. “Lan Fan, dear, what did you do to my employees?”

“Worry about _me_ , Chu! Not them!” she exclaimed, and he looked back at her, schooling his face in an expression of baffled fondness, as if he had no idea why in the world he would concern himself with someone as small as her. And really, he didn't. Lan Fan was being reckless, and if there was anything he learned both as a royal and a businessman, it was that impulsiveness only catered to long-term damages, not quick gains. “I can kill you right now,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing in saturated anger.

He laughed then, ignoring the searing pain that shot up from his broken ribs. He laughed, because it was like watching a squirrel hurl acorns at a passing car, or a blade of grass fuss against the wind that bent it.

She sprinted forward and pushed him hard against the wall, and he indulged her. He only felt the sting of split flesh on his cheek at about the same time he felt the warm wetness of blood trail down to his chin. He glanced down and realized belatedly that she was holding a short knife, and that she must have slashed him right before pinning him. Heh, so she'd gotten a little faster than before, not a big deal.

Moving her arm methodically, she positioned it against the middle of his chest, her fist digging against his throat. He gasped for breath.

“You know that I can do it if I want to,” she snarled. “You knew it before too. Why else did you bargain with me?”

“But I also know that you don't want to,” he wheezed. He was beginning to feel the lightheadedness that accompanied the shortage of oxygen. He gave her a predatory smirk, and raised his own hand so that he could caress her face.

“Back in Xing,” he uttered, trying to get what little air he could past his lips, “I used to enjoy myself on girls like you.”

Her eyes widened a bit, but it was enough. She hobbled several steps back, eying him with revulsion. He pushed himself away from the wall, and he rubbed the spot on his throat that she compressed. There might be a bruise there by the end of the day.

“You can never kill me, because you don't know where the Red Stone is,” he taunted her.

“I _paid_ you. I've played along all these years, pandering to your whims! The least you can do is hold up your end of the bargain, you snake!”

“The least? Now hold on –”

“We had a deal!” she shouted, loud enough that Henry began to wonder how many of his employees had 'vanished.'

“That we did, little girl,” he said. He straightened his back and rolled back his shoulders. Goodness, how he hated getting slammed into things. “But deals and contracts are subject to situations, and rarely are they ever for life. Now as I remember it, I _did_ hold up my end of the bargain, two years ago. I saved Fu's life and yours, and I even made sure that the military would not find one trace of you in the murder scenes of The Dealers' Guild. _That_ was _my_ end of the bargain, Lan Fan. I've completed it. Really, what right do you have to keep insisting that I provide you with the Red Stone?”

“Grandpa would have never fallen ill if it wasn't for you and your experiments!” she snapped. The handle of her knife broke, so tightly she was holding it. “I would have never killed the Dealers if it wasn't for you! You can't paint yourself a hero for fixing things that you broke in the first place.”

“Now, now, let's not point fingers,” Henry stated, grabbing his handkerchief from a pocket and using it to staunch the bleeding on his cheek. “It's mighty childish, don't you think?”

To his surprise, Lan Fan merely stared back at him in indignation. Then she pulled out a lighter, walked calmly over to his desk. She picked up a sheet of paper from it, lighted it up, and let it fall in the waste basket. She picked several other sheets of paper, began tearing them up with her teeth, and added the pieces slowly to feed the fire. The room bloomed into life with a blaze of orange.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“The things here are important, right?” she said, her voice devoid of the ferocity it held only moments before. “That's why you're guarding them so heavily. Well, I don't care about them. I'll just burn them. Maybe I'll take what's important to you too.” Henry watched as she picked up one of his heavy ledgers, and began tearing into them and sacrificing them as fire fodder.

He cleared his throat. “Why do you think I will keep giving you the medicine when you've been conspiring against me?”

She paused from her juvenile revenge, hand poised on top of a folder soon to be a victim to the flames.

“Oh? You don't think I'd find out, did you?” He giggled. “Lan Fan, you are so naïve! You are so stupid, it's almost cute. The thing is that people like me don't get to be on top without knowing what we're up against. By necessity, we become experts in those who want to drag us to their level. How can I miss it when it's so obvious?”

He walked up to a shelf, pulled out a bottle of sparkling water, and poured its entire contents into the trash bin. The room darkened eerily with the death of the fire.

“How does it feel like to sell yourself to a Yao?” he continued, enjoying her growing apprehension. “Tell me, do you warm his bed as well as watch his back? Is that part of the deal you made with him? What was it called again? Oh, that's right, Operation Greed!” Henry allowed himself another bout of laughter as he watched her expression fall into grave concern and fear. “Judging by how high the sun is when I came here, I predict that the last phase is happening right as we speak.

“I know a lot about Ling Yao,” Henry said. “He's been dabbling in the black markets since he turned ten. I know that he is friends with the some of the authorities in the underworld. In a way, he reminds me a lot of myself. Which is why it's so easy to predict what he's going to do.”

“He's nothing like you!” Lan Fan bellowed.

He found her conviction almost endearing. “That's because you either don't know him very well, or you don't know me very well. Either way, I think we've established the fact that you don't know much at all. You see, some time before Yao's Auto-Mail friends came to me, a State Military echelon visited me first. I knew that the amount Elric and Rockbell asked for was preposterously small if they truly wanted to evade the team deployed to investigate them. So I got curious.”

“You... you know about Mustang?” Lan Fan asked, her eyes cautious.

“Of course! And I must say, I'm honestly surprised that Rockbell decided to throw her entire life's work to the teeth of the military dogs. Though, I'm not exactly disappointed. I'm getting all the trade secrets in return. She has sabotaged herself twice over, which only implies how desperate you all were to get to me. And you know how I feel about people who try to cross me, don't you?”

Lan Fan exhaled raggedly, and clutched the edge of the desk.

“Oh, don't worry. I'll forgive your disrespectful attempts at conspiracy, if we make a new deal,” Henry suggested, and he couldn't help the smile that stretched across his face at the way her eyes snapped back up to his, hungry.

“Kill Ling Yao,” he stated. “And you can have as many Red Stones as you like.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Aalrighty! Everyone saw that coming, right? If you're confused, don't worry. Lan Fan will explain everything to Ling in due time, and you guys will get the whole story.
> 
> So, two twists in one chapter. Well, there's another one that's coming up in Chapter 9, and it's very LingFan-ish, but I'll cross the bridge when I get there. Needless to say, Ling is not gonna be too happy about this. He really ought to stop naming his plans after Greed. It brings him bad luck, hehe.
> 
> I've also been studying some of my favourite books that have a lot of intrigue. And what I noticed is that most of them tend to include the perspective of the antagonist. So, I think from now on, Henry Chu will be one of the focalizers of the story. I really think that it's an effective way for the readers to know what the stakes are, so that things don't just sort of jump out of nowhere. (I mean, I tried to put as much foreshadowing as I can when it came to Lan Fan's secret that she's Chu's puppet, but I don't know. How do you guys feel about that?) And I'm not exactly fond of the whole villain-reveals-his-secret-plans-to-hero, so I think I'll include more of Chu's POV from now on.
> 
> Please let me know what you guys think! Thank you so much for all your support and comments and faves! The response last chapter was amazing, really I'm so grateful! (Also, let me know if I have to increase the rating. Henry Chu is a creep, no denying that, but I tend to rely more on innuendo when it comes to sexual matters, and I don't think it'll get any worse than it was in this chapter. Aw, sorry if that disappoints you if you were looking forward to some LingFan action, but I think it's clear to say they got a TON of things to work out before they get to that level yet.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

“You're insane.” Goosebumps rose on Lan Fan's skin, her heart skipping a beat as horror dawned on her. Horror for herself and for Ling, because if there was anything this imp incarnate was good at, it was getting what he wanted. “Your own _son?”_

Chu's grin remained stretched disgustingly across his face. “Well, it didn't stop you from doing the same to Arthur Hwang, did it?”

“Grandpa killed him out of self-preservation,” Lan Fan retorted, trying her best to ignore the nagging whisper of guilt and confusion she felt about the young man's murder. It wasn't like he would have given them the same consideration; no, that boy never even flinched when he administered each burn, each slice, and she felt sick just thinking of it! “There's a difference between protecting yourself and killing a person because someone ordered it.”

“Ah, moralizing again, are we?” he calmly placed his hands in his pockets, facing her squarely. He looked bored, and Lan Fan boiled with indignation at how he could be so nonchalant while he toyed with people's lives. “It is no different to me. At least, whatever difference there may be is subtle. Arthur was useful in streamlining the creation of the Red Stones, but he was a leech and his mother is an irritating harpy. Ling, on the other hand, has never been anything other than a nuisance, who has grown to be a rather persistent pain in my ass. What, you think I planned for him to inherit my company just because he's my legitimate son? Don't be so naive! I've always known how he felt about my business! God, he'd burn it to the ground! No, there's hardly any difference at all. They're both impediments.

“You could say that I'm just... _protecting_ myself.”

Lan Fan winced, hating the way he twisted her words. She was unprepared for this, loathed as she was to admit it. She came here to ask about the Red Stones, probably to threaten him into coughing a bottle or two into her palms so that she could go back to the hospital and take care of things that actually mattered! She didn't come here to weigh Ling's life against her grandfather's, didn't come to ponder the prospect of painting her hands with blood again.

And how many times had she berated Ling for being short-sighted and crazy? He wasn't crazy. _She_ was, and she was too late in realizing it this time.

“So, do we have a deal or not?” He turned around, going behind the desk where she had moments ago been plundering his documents.

“There is no way I would kill on your behalf again.” Not Ling _. E_ _specially_ not Ling. She had to warn him.

She snapped open the largest binder on the desk and tried to fire up the edges of the sheets with her lighter. But it was difficult to set it ablaze, so thick was the pile. Chu lounged at her, fist speeding towards her face, and she had to roll over on top of the desk to avoid him. Damn him, she had already built a decently sized fire, and he had to drown it in one of his nasty drinks. Now she had to build up another one.

As she tumbled on the other side, several stray sheets of paper landed on the ground with her. She scrambled to her knees, and tried to spark one on fire with the lighter. Her thumb flicked over the striker wheel, but the flame spluttered to death. She felt Chu's hand grab her ankle, but she lashed out with her other foot, and his hold loosened. She somersaulted across the floor to give herself some distance from him, her hand gripping the lighter tightly and trapping the paper beneath. Hooking her foot around the legs of a small stool, she swung her leg forward, sending it hurling across the space between her and Chu.

During the split second that that bought her, Lan Fan rolled the striker wheel again. Finally, a small flame burst into life, and she lowered it on the scrap piece of paper. The edge began to fold as it blackened, the fire eating away the pulp. She snatched it up from the ground, careful not to let the fire die against the air, and she placed it on the table, among the remaining documents on Chu's desk.

Now all she had to do was to stop Chu from putting it out, to let the fire feed and grow. It would activate the sprinklers, and then that should take care of everything else. For now. She tried to aim for his face with a kick, but he blocked it. She stepped closer to the side of the table where Chu left the bottle of sparkling water, and with a roundhouse kick, she sent it hurtling towards his head. He avoided it neatly, and it crashed into pieces on the floor. It didn't matter; she just had to get him away from the desk. With a flurry of offensives, she tried to strike Chu where she knew he was vulnerable from her earlier attacks: his ribcage, his temple, anywhere she had damaged him before. But he had the advantage of being both taller and bigger than her, stronger even, and his older age didn't take away from his agility.

The smoke detector woke with a screechy beep, as the room began to fill with the tendrils of dark smoke. Lan Fan smiled inwardly. Only a minute more, maybe not even that much.

Fighting Chu, she was beginning to understand the difference it made having to grow up in a place where fighting was necessary for survival. Her life, filled with poverty and scarcity as it was, required other methods to ensure that she and her grandfather could make it each day. Fu had taught her every technique, every school of art that their clan had mastered, but what she lacked was the high-pressured experience. On the other hand, every punch that Chu delivered was streaked with cruel intent, his kicks were lined with single-minded determination, his eyes were clouded with apathy.

She managed to sneak in a jab to his rib cage and he yelled out loud, crumpling slightly against her attack. She kicked him in the chest, pushing him away from the table.

Just then, the sprinklers suddenly activated themselves and water rained down on them. Turning around, Lan Fan found that the fire had grown bigger, now feeding itself on more than half of the crap littering Chu's desk. The mess sizzled against the sudden onslaught of liquid. She was so relieved that the fire system kicked in, that she barely avoided the punch coming in from her left.

She switched her approach, moving to defend herself rather than actively attack him. He was still fast, and the room was getting more and more cluttered as pieces of furniture met their ruin during their fight. The ground was uneven, her stance unbalanced. She took several hits, one against her solar plexus, followed by a strike against her head. She fell to the ground.

Chu laughed a little.

“What do you hope to get out of this, little Lan Fan?” He loomed over her, losing his footing for a moment. “You're not getting a Red Stone anymore. You might not even get out of here. How would you like that, eh?” He spat out blood. “Your grandfather would never see you again. I wonder how he would feel. He's on his deathbed, and yet still made it longer than you did.”

Lan Fan squirmed on the ground, trying to get her right hand beneath her. She watched as Chu swayed over her.

“Just keep talking, Chu,” she muttered.

“What did you say?” he yelled.

“I said just keep talking!” she yelled back, rolling to her knees and driving her fist into his knee. He fell to the ground like a sack of rice. His reflexes were slowing.

“I've learned a thing or two,” she said, getting up, watching as he blinked his eyes, no doubt trying to clear his vision. The liquid from the sprinklers continued to fall. “Working for Auto-Mail, I get an interesting array of clients. You honestly think you're the only one out there with tricks up your sleeve?”

Chu tried to get up, but he lost his balance and fell again. “What did you do, you bitch?” he said, but his words were slurring.

“Halothane solution,” Lan Fan said. He was now reclining on the floor, almost unmoving, save for the shifting of his head and his silent mouthing of words. “I have contacts too, you know. I know where to get things like those. As for the sprinklers, I guess I have to thank Ling for the blueprint of the building. The pipes were outlined in yellow.”

She risked several steps toward the man quickly losing consciousness. She crouched down near his head, and lowered her voice. “You remember halothane, don't you? Nitrous oxide? Xenon? You thought they were so harmless. I would too if they hadn't knocked me right out. Then you and your son and your team of bad doctors made tiny little tweaks to the Red Stone, and eventually none of them worked on me anymore.” Lan Fan snickered ironically. “Maybe you expect my thanks for being conscious right now, while you and the rest of your men soon wouldn't be. But I have no gratitude for you.”

Chu's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he slumped to the floor.

Lan Fan snorted. The halothane solution took effect quickly but it also wore off quickly. She jumped from where she was kneeling, and went straight out of the basement room. The two men she had downed earlier remained lying on the floor, though she didn't know if it was because of the contaminated sprinklers or still an effect of her earlier attack.

Her heart hammered in her chest, her mind ticked the time until the knock-out agent would wear off. She had to be far away then. At least, she needed to be somewhere not easily traceable, and then she needed to get out of Tobha. And while she was very worried about Ling, Chu would be pissed and the first thing he'll do to get to her was find her grandfather. She needed to get to Fu first. Then they needed protection. She had no doubt that Henry Chu would kill them this time for certain, if he managed to catch them. She had conspired against him, put his business and his life at risk; she had done more than so many people who had died from his hands had ever done.

The cool dawn air was a welcome change from the fire-heated basement she was in only moments ago. She ran, seeking refuge in the close buildings nearby, the cozy smell of the suburbs disorienting her for a moment. How could something so normal be within the reach of her fingers, when she herself was losing her grip with her own world? Everything was crumbling.

She searched her backpack for the cellphone that Ling gave her. She had ignored every single one of his calls within the past few hours, and felt terrible for it. But she didn't think that their circumstances would be so dire. Lan Fan pressed the button to turn it on, and waited for it to boot. Ling would hate her. He would _so_ hate her, he wouldn't want to see her face, but she needed to warn him. Tell him that he has to be careful, because his father wanted him dead. He might not believe her, but at least he could take the necessary precautions. Then maybe she could turn herself in to Mustang or Hawkeye or one of the other guys. They can take care of things, right? They were good State Militants, trustworthy; the ones who would do the right thing even if the law said it wasn't. They would take care of Grandpa Fu. It didn't matter what happened to her. She'd gladly go to prison, where at least there would be guards posted outside her door.

Lan Fan couldn't barely catch her breath as she looked for a ride, a bus or cab, anything. Her hand was shaking with anxiety, her eyes darting about the streets, looking for pursuers. Her ears strained to hear a hint of sirens, of a fire-truck sent to deal with the fire alarms she'd set off. She wore a glove, but she was sure, if the investigators were thorough, that they would find a trace of her there. Maybe a loose hair, or the crumbled pieces of her knife handle.

Her phone vibrated slightly in her hand, indicating that it was now fully booted. The signal was low, and when she tried to dial Ling's number, the service provider told her she was still unregistered in the network. Lan Fan swore quietly under her breath, waving the stupid gadget about to see where she could get a good connection.

Lan Fan suddenly felt a sting on the side of her neck. She brought her hand up to feel the spot, and her fingers found a long, skinny needle piercing her skin. She glanced to her side, but it was too late. Her mind clouded, and her body numbed. She fell to the ground, getting only a glimpse of red hair and black clothes, before darkness overcame her.

-o-

“What do you _mean_ that they're _all_ gone?” Ling pressed his hand to his ear, trying to block out the sounds of traffic surrounding him. He felt bloodless and faint, severe disappointment lodging itself in his chest so tightly he could barely breathe.

“I mean that they are not where we planned them to be,” Mustang replied, sounding a little piqued, but with the operation deteriorating in its most crucial part, who wouldn't be?

“I was just there,” Ling exclaimed. “I went there twice this past night to check that they were there. And they were.” He had even looked inside the bag and found the bundled wads of cash crowding the small space. The contract had been in an envelope, stashed in the side pocket of the bag.

“Well, they're not here now,” Mustang said glumly.

Ling glanced at the laptop, zooming into the grid system where the trackers were beeping their lives away. But Hawkeye and Mustang and Hunter Manos were exactly where they were supposed to be, where he himself had been twice just that night. They had rented a bachelor apartment in the outskirt of the city, not terribly posh nor large, but well-secured. In the bedroom, they installed a cabinet with a fake bottom, in which they stored the bag of evidence.

“It's hiding in the cabinet, and you have to pull the upper drawers in a stair-formation to activate the latch that pulls the false bottom open,” he said, trying to bring to his mind the process of opening the secret compartment. He'd left the apartment in relative satisfaction to head back to the downtown core, worrying only about Lan Fan.

Was this his fault? _Again_? Overlooking something because he'd been distracted? Naïve?

“Ling, listen to me. We have searched the entire place. It's small, it didn't even take that much time. We've pulled apart the cabinet, even undressed the bed, dismantled the kitchenware and the living room furniture. The things we need are not here.”

Ling closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose. A part of him felt like this was a dream, that the entire night had been nothing but an unraveling nightmare. He tried not to see Lan Fan's absence as an omen, because what did it mean anyway if Lan Fan wasn't here? It wasn't like she –

He caught himself before finishing that thought. This was _his_ operation, and he was its mastermind. He had to take responsibility for the outcome of his actions, not randomly blame people for its failure just because things didn't go according to plan.

He took a deep breath.

“Have you contacted the others?” he asked, and even though he tried his best to suppress it, a nervous tremor shook his voice.

“You were the first one I called after we found out that it wasn't here,” Mustang answered. “Hawkeye's calling Ed.”

Ling shook his head, trying to clear it of distracting thoughts like why in the world did this have to happen _yet again_ or what in goodness's name had he forgotten or would he always be a failure, always be one step behind his father? Instead, he tried to focus on the problem now and how they were going to solve it.

So.

The money and the contract were gone. His heart raced just thinking about it. Their evidence that Chu was conspiring with the black markets, the very evidence that would prove once and for all that he was an enemy of the state... was gone.

_Calm_ , he told himself. “What do we need to do?” he asked.

“Well, there are only several options I can think of for the moment,” the Colonel replied, sounding – to Ling's grave disappointment – defeated. “We still have to take Hunter Manos to the station. It will be very scandalous to return empty handed.”

He heard an audible sigh at the other end of the line. He could imagine that Mustang was rubbing his forehead. Ling's own head felt like a hive for restless bees; they had detailed maps of the city, had memorized the intervals of traffic lights, had even set up a complex communication system, and they had more than five back-ups ready to intervene should anything happen. And yet none of them ever thought of _this_.

It was Operation Greed 1.0 all over again.

Ling swore.

“Ling, calm down,” Mustang's voice came through his earpiece again. “We won't be involving any of the higher ranked officers right now. My team is responsible for this entire mission, so any interrogation would be performed by one of us. We still have time to collect ourselves.”

“Right,” Hawkeye's voice came through Ling's left earphone. “I think the best course of action right now is for some of you to look for the missing money. I've notified Edward and Winry about the problem. If we don't find it, not only do we have the failed mission to think about, but we now have to scrape four million sens to pay back to the devil.”

Ling rubbed his hand over his face, unintentionally spreading cold perspiration across his skin. Hawkeye was right. Who cared about his silly little operation when his own friends were sinking in debt to the most cruel money-lender in the history of mankind?

“Alright,” Ling breathed. “Alright. I will help.”

He disengaged himself from his connection to Mustang, and tuned in to Edward. He closed his laptop, and began packing up his things.

“Ed?”

“I'm here!” his friend grumbled. “Winry and I are taking a cab out of the city. Funny how we are all bugged and we didn't even bother to put a tracking device on the freaking _money_ _itself._ Damnit!”

Ling tried not to let Ed's words get to him; his friend was just as frustrated as he was, after all. But he also could not deny that this was a rather large issue they had overlooked. A tracking device. That was all it would have taken to prevent something like this from happening. Unless someone from the inside betrayed –

No, no. Not this thought again. No, he couldn't think it.

“We'll be looking around the perimeter of South City,” Edward continued. “You might want to touch base with Al and your sister. Paninya too. We're all on the hunt.”

Ling hoisted his pack onto his shoulders, and thought about hailing for another taxi cab to take him to the parking area where he'd left his car, just north of the city's busiest districts. But the roads were impeded by the rush hour traffic as more and more vehicles entered city. No, it would take him far longer to get out of the city via a vehicle, than it would for him to just run. But it wasn't like he could run either. _That_ would also take him longer than he wanted in the first place. He needed to get out now. This place was suffocating.

He searched for a bike rental terminal; those were littered in various places around the city, where people could take a bicycle from a docking station for a small fee, use it for a while, and dock it in a different terminal close to their destination. When he found one, he quickly swiped his credit card on the reader, took one of the bicycles and headed for the parking lot where he left his car.

The money could be anywhere; that was the most terrifying part of this entire dilemma. Auto-Mail had used very little of the four million sens loaned to them; they didn't use any amount that they couldn't possibly pay back within a moment's notice. That bag had over three million sens worth of cash in it. Which meant that if someone discovered it, it would be like winning a lottery for them. That bag of money could have been split up between multiple people; they could be using it at this moment. There might be no money left to trace.

_Then the contract is the most important thing to retrieve now_. It could still work after all; if they found the contract, they would still be able to prove that Henry Chu had supplied Auto-Mail with money. And perhaps after Chu had been incarcerated, their debt to him wouldn't matter anymore. XYZ Ltd. would be dissolved anyway. Wouldn't it? His friends would be safe then, right?

Ling distractedly rubbed his eyes, aware of how quickly his heart was beating, which had nothing to do with his efforts at biking. He found it difficult to breathe, and there was a profound pressure on his chest spurned by the impending sense of failure. He forced himself to pedal faster, and he began to see the last intersection before the roads would merge into the highway exiting the city. He'd have to find that contract. That could be the only thing that would save them.

-o-

Rosé chewed her lips nervously, watching as the doctors and nurses scrambled to get back to work after the sudden, puzzling, and slightly terrifying commotion that just transpired.

Fu had already been awake by the time she came to visit him. Pale and slow, he hadn't looked that much better than the previous day, but at least the nurses were able to get some food into him. For a moment she wondered if it was worth mentioning that Lan Fan seemed to have disappeared from the operation last night; she was afraid of the old man's reaction. It wasn't the right time to put stress upon him. Yet at the same time, he deserved to know what was happening to his granddaughter.

She had barely begun to open up the topic, getting only as far as mentioning that Ling had called her to ask if she knew about Lan Fan's whereabouts. But his confusion was met by the slamming of the door, and men and women in the colour of shadows came in and took him.

Rosé had yelled as they unhooked him from the machines. She screamed for help, and tried her best to retrieve her patient from their grasps. Fu was barely strong enough to stand, let alone fight back with the efficiency of the warrior he used to be. However, when security came bursting in, followed by wary doctors and staff, Fu began to tell them to go away.

In the end, she could do nothing but watch as the strangers dragged Fu from his room, dispatching security and passers-by alike with quick efficiency, and brought him to a waiting car just outside of the hospital lobby. Fu had warned her that State Militants weren't necessary and that they weren't to be followed. He seemed to have known his captors. At least, he didn't even show signs of resistance. She remembered precisely the clear, piercing look he'd given her, full of meaning and warning.

“Something happened to my granddaughter. I have to know,” was all he was able to yell as he succumbed to their administration, and the door of the car slammed shut. She didn't understand what he meant.

Now back in the waiting room of the hospital, stunned and numb, Rosé played with the strings of her bag, wondering what in the world just happened, wondering what she was going to do now. Everything had happened so fast. She didn't even get to tell Fu how worried Ling was last night after Lan Fan had seemingly vanished from his radar. Even when morning had dawned, Rosé herself tried to contact Lan Fan, but to no avail. Would Fu have understood what was going on? Would he be able to explain it to Ling?

Too late. Fu was gone as well.

A commotion bubbled into existence at the entrance of the hospital again. Rosé turned around, scared to see more bad-tempered goons, but there were only enforcers coming through the glass doors, their cars parked at the driveway. One of the hospital's security guards went up to them, probably to explain the earlier fiasco.

Squeezing through the uniform-clad bodies blocking the doorway was Mrs. Yao, hair collected up in a neat, shiny ponytail. She stood out like a cloud in a clear summer's day, her white blazer a stark contrast against the waves of blue fabric that the militants wore. When she spotted Rosé, she headed straight for her.

“Have you heard from Lan Fan?” the older woman asked, forehead creasing in a worried frown.

“Lan Fan? I'm guessing Ling hasn't found her yet,” Rosé said. “No, no, I haven't heard from Lan Fan since almost midnight last night.”

Mrs. Yao cursed under her breath.

“That's not all, ma'am,” Rosé added hesitantly, anxious about how she would be able to deliver the news. “Her grandfather is also gone.”

Mrs. Yao's head snapped up to hers, eyes wider than she'd ever seen them before. Her usually bright complexion dulled into a bleached palour.

“I know, I know, I am _so_ sorry, but it happened so quickly! All these guys just came in and took him, and we all tried to stop them, but they were hurting other people, and Fu said that he will go because he thinks they know something about Lan Fan, and then they were just gone!” Rosé breathed. “Just like that. Gone.”

Mrs. Yao blinked once, but her face seemed to have frozen in that wide-eyed stare.

Helplessly, Rosé gestured to the militants in the doorway. “That's why they're here,” she explained lamely. “Because of all the ruckus earlier.”

Slowly, the Xingese woman looked away, blinking rapidly in shock. After a few moments, she regained her composure, and nodded solemnly. “I must tell Ling about this. He's not going to be happy. He's been worrying about Lan Fan the entire night.” Then she frowned in concentration. “Do you think it is a coincidence? The operation occurred at dawn. Lan Fan disappeared before, and Fu was kidnapped after. I don't like how this appears. Not at all.”

She filched her cellphone from her purse and dialed a number.

Rosé stood there, contemplating what all this disturbance entailed. A slow sinking feeling pooled into her gut, as she remembered how they had struggled – and continue to struggle – with finding the special medicine for Fu. Was that also connected to Ling's plans?

“Ling, can you talk now?” Mrs. Yao spoke. “N-no, I haven't found Lan Fan. Ling... Ling, listen, I have some more news for you.” She stopped talking, and listened to whatever her son was telling her on the other side. Slowly, her eyes widened again, not only in puzzlement, but also with something akin to disbelief and fear.

“I don't understand!” the woman exclaimed. “How could those vanish?” More explanation on the other end. “Listen, Ling. This might not be the best time to disclose this to you then, but I'll tell you anyway, because I think you have the right to know. It might even help in your analysis of the situation. I'm at the hospital now with Rosé. Fu is also gone. Yes, gone. Apparently some men and women took him earlier... look, I don't know the entire story. But those are the facts.”

She ended the conversation in relative anxiousness, meeting Rosé's eyes with dread. “The operation failed,” Mrs. Yao whispered. “Lan Fan and Fu aren't the only ones that disappeared. The money and the contract did too.”

-o-

“We'd have to regroup soon,” the Colonel replied in a low tone as he drove them out of city, heading for the military headquarters in South Area. “This is a complete, utter mess.”

Riza leaned back against her seat, closing her eyes for a moment to calm herself. Everyone was confused and in a state of disarray, but it was also true that nobody really knew how to proceed at the moment. The kids were already scouring the area for the lost assets. The Colonel would have to report that there were no fruits to their labour from this day, apart from a member of Auto-Mail who could be useful in some way. In the worst case scenario, their superiors would not be satisfied with their progress and might re-assign the entire assignment to another team. That could be terrible news for their friends and acquaintances working in Auto-Mail. As for XYZ Ltd., Ling had lost a rare chance to finally dismantle it, which was bad news for the entire country, really.

They had noticed Lan Fan's absence during the operation. It was difficult not to. Everyone was supposed to be tracked by the software, and each person was supposed to be connected to at least two others through their communication transmitters. When she had asked Ling where Lan Fan was, the boy regrettably admitted that she didn't show up. All he knew was that she had gone to check on her grandfather's medicine, and he lost contact with her soon after.

She hadn't given it much thought before. Lan Fan had a marginal role in this latter half of the operation, and they had more than enough back-ups anyway. Riza didn't know what kind of arrangements the girl had made with Ling, but as far as she was concerned, Lan Fan wasn't in possession of any major stakes.

Manos sat surprisingly calmly at the back seat of the car. That didn't bother Riza too much; they would need to be collected at this time of confusion.

“You do realize we have to detain you for a while,” she told the young man. “You are, after all, a confirmed member of the underworld.”

“I know,” Manos said. “When will the interrogation be, do you think?”

“Not long after we get there,” Riza said. “You're our only link to the Auto-Mail dealings now. Everyone will be expecting us to milk answers out of you. It'll be tricky, but we'll probably send Breda or Falman to do the questioning, while the rest of us try to pick up the pieces.”

“Are we sticking to our story then?” Mustang asked. “Everyone would want to know why he ran to the apartment after he was busted from their hideout. Initially we planned for him to say that he hurried there to try and relocate the goods, thought he lost us when his team diverged, but we caught up to him anyway.”

“We don't need to deviate that much from the planned back story,” Manos answered. “Maybe this time, we can resort to the truth. I can honestly tell them that I was there to take the money away to a different place, but it wasn't there anymore. And I have no idea where it could be.”

The Colonel exchanged glances with Riza, an uncertain glint in his eye, but he shrugged as if he couldn't think of a better alternative. “It's plausible.”

Riza nodded. “You gotta play Goldilocks in this scenario. Stories that are too reasonable, that make too much sense, can easily get suspected of fabrication. Likewise, stories that make very little logic would just invoke suspicion and doubt. We have to go for something in between.”

“I don't have to change any of the other facts we've determined for my back story,” Manos said. “I can still confess that I'm a sub-admin, that I know that Auto-Mail signed a deal with XYZ Ltd. and that's where all the money came from. They might not believe me yet until we find the evidence, but that's a sure start.”

Riza turned back to look at the road, rubbing her hands to rid them of their clamminess. Before they reached the station, Riza cuffed Manos's hands, and by the time they arrived at their destination they had schooled their faces into uttermost business-like expressions. They couldn't allow their anxieties about the failed mission to bleed through their facade.

She and Mustang were met with salutes as they entered the precinct. One young man, a newly appointed officer, came up to her and she handed him Hunter Manos. “Take him to one of the cells below. We will interrogate him soon.”

The young man nodded, his curly red hair bouncing with the action. He took Manos by the arm and led him away. Riza followed the Colonel to the small office assigned to them here at the South Area precinct; it was a warm little space, despite being only a quarter of the size of the rooms assigned to them in Central or the East. She usually found the room quite cozy despite being a little cluttered, but at this moment, the room seemed filled with a gloomy atmosphere. It was nothing like how she imagined she would return from the operation. Nothing in her line of work was ever stamped with the mark of certainty, but for some reason – perhaps it was Ling's eagerness or her own optimism – she thought they would finally gain an upper hand. Chu, it appeared, was always one step ahead of them.

“Call the rest of our team,” Mustang told her as he sank in his chair behind the large oak desk in the middle of the room. “Breda can perform Manos's interrogation. I'm sure he knows how to deal with that. Falman needs to start on the reports; he'll have the best recollection of the events and how they deviated from our plans. Tell Havoc to help him with that. As for Fuery, he needs to clear up the communication lines that we used. But before he does that, tell him to contact Winry and Ling, and tell them to meet the two of us at one of my mother's dens. The old parlour at Fius Hill. We need to talk about what happened.”

Riza spent the next few minutes busily carrying out her orders. The swiftness with which everyone agreed to tackle their duties or to regroup felt like a relief to her. She knew how they felt, how zealously they wanted to receive answers. By early afternoon, Winry, Edward and Ling gathered themselves in the appointed meeting place. This one was a back room in a massage parlour, and the smell of acetone and coconut oil assaulted Riza's nose when they entered.

Ling was sitting on an upturned crate with the word 'flammable' painted in block letter across one of its sides. The boy looked destroyed; head in his hands, his hair fell through the spaces between his fingers, giving him a despondent aura. Riza had never seen him look so defeated.

Slowly, he looked up at her, then focused his red-rimmed eyes at the Colonel.

“I couldn't find the contract,” he said slowly, his voice gravelly. “And Fu disappeared as well, apparently.”

Riza felt her own shock at the same moment she registered the Colonel's stricken face, but she forced herself to calm down and wait for an explanation. This was turning into quite the mystery – honestly, a sick old man? What did he have to do with anything?

“No Lan Fan, no Fu, no money and no evidence,” the colonel sighed beside her. “Anything else I need to know, Ling?”

The Xingese boy exhaled bitterly, and buried his face in his hands again.

A long silence stretched before Edward kicked the wall in a bout of frustration. “She betrayed us, didn't she? And you're all just afraid to say it out loud.”

“Ed,” Winry placed a calming hand on his shoulder. “I'm sure we're all wondering that, but there's no proof–”

“Oh, and how else do you explain the total _disaster_ today?”

“Well,” Riza interjected softly. “It could be that whoever took the money and the document also took Lan Fan and Fu,” she guessed wildly.

“You're saying they were _kidnapped?_ ” Ed said. “That punch-wielding, one-armed butt spanker _was kidnapped_? I don't believe it!”

“We don't know what happened to Lan Fan,” Ling said, his voice laced with hardness and impatience. “But my mother said that Rosé witnessed Fu being taken from the hospital.”

“By whom?” Mustang asked directly.

“A group of men and women, dressed in dark clothes and who knew self-defense enough to disarm and defeat the hospital's security guards.”

“What time?”

“This morning, probably around the same time that we were busy with the operation,” Ling answered. “Rosé said that he didn't even resist. He went along because he suspected that they knew something about Lan Fan.”

Riza narrowed her eyes, mulling over his words in her head. “And what time did you lose contact with Lan Fan?”

“A little before midnight last night,” Ling said. “I haven't spoken to her since she left the house, but she contacted Rosé close to midnight to ask after her grandfather.”

“You said she took a cab?” Mustang asked, dragging a creaky wooden chair away from the wall, and setting it down in front of Ling. He sat on it, and planted his palms on his knees. “Do you know the cab number she took?”

Ling shook his head. “She left before I did, and she called the cab herself.”

“Well, that puts another hurdle in front of us, but not by much,” Mustang muttered. He turned his head and looked at Riza. “Make an inquiry for all cabs active last night that made a trip to...” he trailed off, cocking an eyebrow at Ling's direction. Not missing his cue, Ling gave them the address of the post office.

“Do you know why she needed to go there the night of the operation? Why didn't she wait until it was over?”

“Lan Fan's grandfather is very sick as you know,” Ling began to explain. “She receives medication for him in the post office. She made a deposit for the payment some days ago, but the medicine failed to show up. We have been checking every day for the past several days for it. What Lan Fan told me before she left is that she would check on it, and if it's not there, she would come straight to South City.”

“We'll find the cab then,” Riza suggested. “Even if she switched cabs after she arrived at the post office, we'll question any driver who passed along that building anytime between 10pm yesterday night and 9am this morning.” Hopefully that would give them some kind of clue.

“We can also look more into the people who abducted Fu. If they caused a commotion, I'm sure that the incident was already reported.” Mustang said. “If we find out more information about them, I'm sure they will give us a clue about what in the world happened today.”

“Colonel,” Winry spoke up quietly from a corner of the room. She looked shyly at Ling for a moment, but the Eastern boy didn't return her glance. He still looked lethargic and beaten. Winry stepped closer to them, and said, “You might be interested in knowing that the medicine Lan Fan is searching for is called the Red Stone.”

Riza's heart skipped a beat upon hearing that name. Fu's disappearance came as an extreme surprise, but this... this wasn't just _surprising_. This was alarming.

Was every problem they were going to have related to that cursed object? They had lost access to it long ago, and yet the government – and their team in particular – had always felt the reverberating effects of their mistake. In a way, she could just laugh. How ironic that they were more affected by something they had lost, than when they had possessed it.

“The Red Stone,” Mustang repeated from where he was seated. He was staring at a middle distance, his face unreadable, but Riza knew that his mind was engaged in deep analysis. With an irritated sigh, he stood up and rubbed his face with his gloved hand, and began a slow trek back and forth between the walls of the room. Then with a sudden spark of frustration, he punched the wall nearest him. Even Edward stopped his murmuring to look with consternation at the Colonel.

“Then Edward might be more right than we all want to admit,” Mustang said after a few moments.

“ _Why_?” Ling asked, finally standing up, his frame gaining an assertive stance.

“Because when we revolted against Fuhrer Bradley during the Sanitary Movement, we needed funds for weapons.” Slowly, Mustang turned around, his eyes shadowed by his straight bangs. “And we bargained with Henry Chu. An unbelievable amount of sum in exchange for the single prototype of the Red Stone. _That_ was our collateral.”

Riza heard Winry's small gasp, and couldn't bring herself to look at the girl. That Stone had been the culmination of her parents' hard work before they passed away.

It was the only thing they had worth bargaining at that time. Fuhrer Bradley's faction of the government owned everything else of value; they possessed the majority of arsenal, people power, and even fiscal assets derived from taxes. But the Red Stone project was a humanitarian initiative, backed by Riza's own grandfather and guised under the Aerugan War Act to help their forces in battle. It wasn't Bradley's, but if the tide of the uprising had turned against them, they all knew he would take the prototype and use it for purposes other than what Grumman intended. Mustang saw a crack of opportunity: they needed power against the president's echelon, and they needed to keep the Red Stone away from the treasonous higher-ups.

Trading with XYZ Ltd. achieved those goals simultaneously. At that time, Chu was the lesser evil.

The truth was that it was the prototype's potential that held the most value. The hundred grams of compound itself was not the magical cure it promised to be. At least not yet. The doctors assigned to the project managed to engineer the special cells, but it was untested, the cells untrained. There was work, and a lot of it, yet to be done before the Red Stone could actually heal anything. But Chu bought it regardless, and Riza could still remember the greed and the slyness in the man's eyes as he regarded the material they had presented on his desk.

“Do you think Chu discovered a way to upgrade the prototype into a working cure?” Riza asked.

“No!” Ling blurted from where he was standing. He clutched his head in his hands, angrily digging his fingers into his hair. “No, because Fu is still sick! Lan Fan had been spoon-feeding him that medicine for two years and he's still sick! He's–”

“It doesn't matter!” Mustang shot back. Riza could tell Ling was trying his best to avoid the one conclusion everyone else would have realized by now. “The point is that your bodyguard is buying her stash from Henry Chu, directly or indirectly! And where was she last night? Where is our evidence now? Don't you get it _yet_?”

Ling let out a bitter laugh. “And what else should we conclude? How far do you want to take this? You know who gave me Lan Fan, right? _Edward and Winry_ gave me Lan Fan! Do you want to say that Ed and Win are also conspiring with my father?” He laughed again, a stark, ugly bark devoid of any humour.

“Lan Fan was quickly becoming a fine figure in the Auto-Mail network,” Winry whispered. She met Riza's eyes briefly, and the sharpshooter could see the doubt in those blue pools. “I mean, it's not impossible that Chu could have infiltrated our market with a spy, but... I just don't understand. Lan Fan was honest and fair in her business.” Everything that Chu was not.

“To gain our trust, no doubt,” Ed suggested, but even he too had lost his feistiness. Now he just seemed partly disturbed and partly resigned, which Riza attributed to him realizing that he was one of the people responsible for bringing Lan Fan into the team.

“But... but it doesn't make sense,” Ling said softly. He was now sitting again on his chair, eyes trained on the floor as if the worn wooded patterns would unravel the mystery for him. “Fu really is sick, you know. He's still sick. Are you saying he's part of the ploy? An ill old man? And Lan Fan... if she really was Chu's spy, why would he withhold the medicine for so long?”

Riza's mind whirred with possibilities. There were too many questions, sprouting from the infinite number of variables whose values she did not have at her disposal. She didn't even know Lan Fan well either. The only time they had spent together was when the girl was bleeding her life out in Riza's car, as they headed for the closest, safest hospital Riza could find on that equally woeful night brimming in failure.

“Perhaps he didn't give her the medicine until she gave up relevant information about the operation,” Riza said softly. “This is only a speculation of course, but it doesn't rule out the possibility that Lan Fan _may_ be working for him, albeit unwillingly.”

There were thousands of scenarios, Riza thought. Lan Fan could have accepted Ling's employment offer without any connection to Chu, and was only later coerced into cooperating with the business man. Or perhaps they were both conspiring right from the beginning. Maybe even since the first operation two years ago. The girl had been there. The operation had failed then as well. It was too ridiculous for a coincidence, and yet Riza couldn't find the relationship between everything, not with so many unknowns still lingering.

“I trusted her,” Ling whispered hopelessly. “I knew she was keeping secrets, but... I just thought... it made her fascinating.” He swore. “Why didn't I see this? Why wasn't I able to connect the dots? I didn't even pry... I just thought she was...” He swore again, louder this time, before burying his face back in his palms.

“Ling, you did admit that Lan Fan was very reticent about her background,” Winry added. “Don't be too hard on yourself. If anything, it should be me who – look, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.” Riza stood helplessly as she watched the blonde girl succumb to wracking sobs. Ed beside her was left to grudgingly pat her on the head.

She looked at the Colonel, and he returned her stare with a clouded gaze that spoke of disappointment. But at least it wasn't a defeated one, which Riza considered a good enough reason to stay away from pessimism. At least, for now.

-o-

Hunter Manos sat in contemplative silence behind the black metal bars of the prison cell. The cell was damp and small, the pale green paint peeling off in sections. He sat languidly on the thin mattress set to the side of the cell, wondering what he would do with two million sens.

He'd get out of this wretched country, that was for sure. He contemplated life in Xing. Hmm, too different. He would suffer from culture shock as soon as he stepped foot on the sandy borders of the Western provinces where the Amestrian train would dump him. He liked the food, yes, and perhaps even the women too. But he would be bored in Xing.

Creta was out of the question, seeing as the plague still raged over there. Aerugo was traumatized by the war. That left Drachma, or leaving the continent altogether.

Or perhaps he shouldn't leave the country just yet. A part of him felt that there was more he could leech out from this blood-run nation. There were risks, that was for certain, but then again he learned long ago that there was nowhere he could go where there weren't any risks.

_Two million sens._ Hunter could almost taste the money, so fresh was the smell of the crisp bills in his memory. It had been easy to avoid Ling – stupid, giddy Ling – when the Xingese boy made his multiple trips to the apartment. There was an advantage to being connected at all times to any one of their teammates. There was always an advantage to being an insider.

It was just too bad. He didn't have anything against Ling. As a matter of fact, Hunter rather liked everyone he worked with. Edward was a mightily packed entertainment, Winry was very easy on the eyes. So was Lan Fan, though he wasn't quite fond of her asymmetry. No matter. She already attracted Henry Chu's attention, and that practically made her a walking, talking warning sign.

Hunter slouched against the wall, wondering what time it was. It couldn't have been more than a few hours since he had arrived here with Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Hawkeye. He wondered when Chu would come and see him. The man was exceptionally punctual, as most serious men were, and if he was late for anything, Hunter would sooner assume that it was for dramatic effect.

It wasn't like Hunter considered himself a _traitor_. No. Traitor would mean that he'd pledged his loyalty in the first place. Hunter wasn't that kind of an individual. His services could be bought, but his loyalty belonged only to himself. He didn't know how the great, busy Chu learned about him. But shortly after returning home from the first part of Greed Operation 2.0, he was welcomed by the man himself and several of his well-dressed urchins.

And he accepted their proposition.

Hunter noticed as a lowly State Militant approached the guard standing observantly in front of his cell. The two of them exchanged a few words, before both exited the chamber. They showed little qualms in leaving him alone, but that was understandable; he was, after all, only a mischievous cheater, not an aggressive thug.

Within the moments that followed, Hunter heard the soft, measured footfalls he'd been waiting for. Henry Chu walked into his view, followed by two mean-looking subordinates, one a woman and the other a man. All three were unsmiling, but when Chu turned to face Hunter, his lips pulled into a small smirk.

Hunter pushed himself away from the bed. “So, it's true what they say,” he said. “You do have your ways. Look at you, walking into a precinct without anyone stopping you.”

The man gave a proud shrug. “I'm just industrious, not a miracle worker. That means I don't have much time so you better start talking.”

Hunter looked at a corner of the ceiling where the telltale rim of an inset camera glinted in the poor light.

“Don't worry about that. Just talk,” Chu instructed.

“It's still in the apartment we rented,” Hunter snickered. “By the intersection of 68th District and Kanes Blvd. I placed it in the air vent in the ceiling. It's funny really. It was your son who gave me the inspiration for it. You know what he said about this operation of his? ' _The last place a man looks is under his own two feet._ ' Cute, isn't it? All I had to do was move the money just a little bit, and their panic did the rest. Now they think–”

“You talk too much,” Chu cut him off. Hunter snapped his mouth shut, frowning in distaste. “How much is left?”

“One million, five hundred seventy-five thousand,” Hunter said, injecting his voice with a shot of confidence. The truth was that there were _three_ million, five hundred seventy-five thousand left, but why not cut his share in it too? Chu would hardly care how much Auto-Mail really used, so long as he got all his money back in time. It's too bad, really, just too bad that Edward and Winry would have to pay an extra two million that they never used, but by the time they realize the extent of their problem, Hunter would be out of there.

They would never suspect him either. They would suspect Lan Fan. What a pity.

“What do you have for me, Chu?”

“When you go out of here, there will be a cab that will take you to the train station. From there someone will approach you and settle our arrangement.” Chu meant the five million sens they agreed upon. Hunter already had plans for those. It was the extra two mil he filched from Auto-Mail that gave him the extra thrill.

It was a great stroke of luck. Seven million for revealing the information that Auto-Mail would use the government's inspection of the black market as an opportunity to undermine XYZ Ltd. But Hunter was no amateur – Chu asked specifically about Auto-Mail, so he was going to give information pertaining _only_ to Auto-Mail.

Hunter already decided that if this man wanted to know the even juicier fact that Mustang's unit was part of the operation all along, well... perhaps he could double their current deal.

The young man rolled up his sleeves, as he prepared to set in motion his next wheel of fortune. He watched with eagerness as Chu pulled out a set of keys from his coat pocket. The Xingese man fumbled with it while looking for the key that would presumably unlock Hunter, but it slipped from his fingers and dropped to the ground between the bars.

“Get that for me?” Chu said briskly, eyeing the distance to the floor with some laziness.

Despite being face to face with one of the most powerful men on the continent, Hunter couldn't suppress a sarcastic eye-roll as he bent down to retrieve the keys from the floor. Almost immediately a sharp, excruciating pain emerged from his upper back, and the sticky wetness of blood soaked the material of his shirt. He tried to move away, but the pain paralyzed him in his spot, turning his muscles into jelly. He tumbled to his side, now fully aware of what Chu had done.

The metallic stench of blood perfumed the air, and he gurgled helplessly as he tried to curse at the smirking man above him.

“You... you...”

“Oh? Lost your wagging tongue now, did you?” Chu said softly, almost fatherly even, as if reprimanding a child after a spanking. “You always did talk too much for my liking.”

The ground began to fill with Hunter's blood as it seeped out of the wound on his back, soaking his sleeves, matting his hair.

_You made a big mistake_ , Hunter wanted to say, but when he opened his mouth, only a stream of blood trickled out. His sight was blurring, and for the briefest of moments in between the blinding pain, he felt a strong pang of anger that Chu's face would be the last thing he saw in this world.

No matter. Hunter would die with the other secret untold. He hoped Chu would get a nice back-stabbing surprise, a taste of his own medicine.

The last thing he felt was utter disappointment that he could not use the seven million sens where he would end up in the next life, then he succumbed to the darkness that ate away at his consciousness.

-o-

A strong lurch woke Lan Fan.

Out of balance, she found herself thrown from whatever she was lying on, and she landed ungracefully on a heap on the ground. Her mind whirled, and her stomach felt queasy. She realized she was staring at linoleum flooring, and that she was moving.

Lan Fan blinked. The entire room was moving.

Then she realized she wasn't in a room. She was in a booth. A train booth. She looked up to find an empty seat in front of her, and through the window beside her, she saw browning pasture fields pass by quickly.

Her muscles felt rickety and her memories were hazy. Pushing herself up on all fours, she tried to remember what happened before she got here. She didn't remember boarding a train. She didn't even know where this was going. She had been looking for a bus, but she never got the opportunity to hop on one. And then...

Then someone shot her.

_Damn it!_

Her hand flew to her neck where she recalled being pierced by something. Her hand came away unstained, no blood. But when she applied pressure against her flesh, it felt a little tender.

Frightened, she turned around to scan the booth, and stopped in shock when she found her grandfather's limp body deposited haphazardly on the seat behind her. There was a small space beside him, probably what she had been occupying before she fell off.

Heart thudding in her chest, she scrambled to her feet while fighting nausea. She knelt in front of her grandfather to inspect him. He was unconscious and pale. A little cold to the touch. How the hell did he get here?

The door to the booth slid open, and Lan Fan looked up to find several State Militants standing guard just outside of their booth. One of them, the one who opened the door, was Xingese based on his facial features, and he gave her an unkind smile as he entered. Slowly, he closed the door shut behind him.

“You're awake,” he said. “That's good. I was looking forward to speaking with you.”

“Who are you?” Lan Fan demanded. “How did I get here? Why is my grandfather here?”

The man settled on the seat across from them. He was poised and careful, and his calmness made Lan Fan all the more aware of her panic and fear.

“I am Major Xie, and I have some unfortunate news for you, Ms. Zhang.” He cleared his throat, “I mean, _Ms. Tseng_.” From an inside pocket on his uniform, he pulled a thin bundle of papers, unfolding them before her. When he offered them to her, she reached for them hesitantly. “You are being deported.”

Lan Fan scanned the document, which outlined charges against her and her grandfather for illegal immigration and fraudulent documentation.

“Sixteen years,” the man said again. “I am actually quite impressed. And a little proud too. I've always known us Xingese are a persistent, intelligent bunch.”

She tried to tune him out. He was most likely one of Chu's goons, she was almost certain of it. Her eyes roamed the page, flipping between the papers, trying to filter all the important information she could glean from the hoard of legal terminology.

“I don't understand. You said we are being deported,” she stated. “But it says here that the Amestrian government issues extended internment and labour for severe breaches in immigration laws. Grandpa and I didn't just overstay a summer vacation, like you know. So why are we being sent away instead of imprisoned?”

The man smiled at her. “Why, Lan Fan? You'd rather be thrown in jail? Forced to work in a camp?”

“That's not my point!” she snapped. They weren't following the regulations. And whenever Henry Chu ditched protocol, it usually meant bad news.

“Don't worry too much,” he said, waving his hands in front of her as if he was trying to pacify a rabid dog. “You'd still be imprisoned, okay. Just not here. Don't be too upset.”

“Not here?” She turned to the window again, where the horizon was modulated by gently rolling hills, punctuated occasionally by small houses and pasture and sheep. They were in East Area. Lan Fan's eyes darted to the position of the sun. The train was eastbound. “We're going to Xing!” she exclaimed, more than she asked.

But it didn't make sense! Chu already had her! How long had she been out? It was still dawn when she tried to flee from Tobha. It was late afternoon now. He had so many hours to kill her. The halothane would have worn off not long after she left. By the time she'd been brought back, he would have already been awake. It wasn't like him to let go of someone like her, someone who had already demonstrated her ability to endanger not only him, but his entire life's work, multiple times.

“Read the last page,” the Xingese Major said. “Mr. Henry Chu intervened on your behalf, pulled a couple of strings here and there.”

“Why? He could have just–”

“Killed you?” he finished for her. “He thought about it. Contemplated it very well, may I add. In the end, he just didn't seem... convinced that it was the right retaliation against you. You see, you and his son were nurturing a scheme that would incapacitate him. Not kill him. He'd still be alive, but he would watch as everything he has worked for crashes to the ground in smithereens, everything he loves hopelessly withers away.”

Lan Fan snorted. Love? What love? His love for money and sadism, perhaps. Better world for everyone else if he lost those.

“And so, he decided that he will give you the same opportunity to experience what you wanted him to. Sounds more fair, doesn't it?”

Same opportunity?

Then it struck her.

_Everything she loved hopelessly wither away._ She turned around to look at Fu, slowly reaching for his hand. She didn't have any Red Stones at all. He didn't even have any sort of medical attention anymore. Chu didn't have them sent to prison or camp, because he knew that the officials would not even bother sending Fu with her, that he would be sent to a quarantined infirmary to vegetate the rest of his life away. He knew that she would be shielded from watching her grandfather die, working miles away in the mines or factories. And what he wanted was for her to witness her loss. Every day. Every second.

And they were going to Xing, because she had no friends there, no acquaintances, no connection. No one to visit her, no one for her to warn.

Because now that she knew that Chu was informed of everything, he would prevent her from letting Ling know that his father wasn't a sitting duck any longer. He would gain the one advantage they were counting on him not to have – the knowledge that he was being framed.

But wait...

Her mind flashed back to a moment when she was still in his basement in Tobha, gripping her lighter as he revealed to her that he had discovered her duplicity. There was something about the way he said it, something that nagged at her mind then, though she didn't have the resources to pay more attention to it.

_A State Military echelon visited me first... so I got curious._ That was what he said. His suspicion was aroused only when Winry and Edward sealed a deal that was less than what Mustang's unit borrowed from Chu. After all, if they really wanted to avoid the military dogs, wouldn't they have invested more, if not as much? Spies alone cost double to triple the moving expenses for site relocations. And there were the bribes to think about too.

It slowly dawned on her that Henry Chu might not yet know that Auto-Mail was in league with the very batch of militants sent to undermine them. How long that would last, she didn't know. Henry Chu was influential, and he did find out about her after all, didn't he? Whoever betrayed her would surely have no qualms revealing that information as well.

And maybe it didn't even matter. It didn't matter that Auto-Mail had allied themselves with one of the best units working for the government, because knowing the kind of man they were dealing with, Lan Fan suspected that Auto-Mail might not even survive the week. He might find Winry and Edward useful if he managed to get the right leverage, but Ling... he made it clear that he had no use for Ling.

In an impulse so quick and charged with anger, she stood up and punched Xie across the jaw. She heard him gasp, but she didn't care. She reached for the door latch and slid the door open.

On the other side, five guns were trained at her.

“Get back!” one of the State Militants yelled. “Get back down. Now!”

Lan Fan raised her hands, and eyed her chances of getting across them. They blocked the hallway, each person strategically placed so that there was no space for her to slither through unless she wanted to be a bullet cushion by the time she was through with them.

Xie groaned from behind her, but stood up and placed an ungentle hand on her shoulder.

“Come now, Lan Fan. Do you really think you're going to get through them with your grandfather slung across your back? There wouldn't be any other ride for miles. Unless you're thinking of cows?” He leaned towards her ear and whispered, “These men know that you are a dangerous illegal immigrant. Your profile has already been added to the Immigration Bureau's watchlist. If you stay in Amestris, you and your grandfather would be fugitives. Imagine living the way you did before. Except this time, there wouldn't be a moment's rest.”

“And how would Xing be any different?” she snapped.

“I have orders to keep an eye on you,” he explained. “You'd be placed under house arrest. That means accommodations are already provided. Food and utilities as well. You'll be guarded at all times. You will be impoverished but you won't have to worry about how to survive. We'll make sure that you will.”

But that her grandfather would not.

Her heart beat loudly in her chest, as if trying to escape the enclosed space that felt too small to account for all the emotions she was feeling. The booth felt small. The train felt small. She hadn't felt this way for two years, not to this extent, and she shuddered against the familiar wave of devastation. Even bound by Chu's puppet strings, she at least had a marginal amount of freedom to _search_ for a way to freedom. But now he'd once again smothered all forms of escape, and she suffocated against what this would imply.

Her grandfather would die, and she couldn't do anything about it.

Her grandfather would die.

“Oh don't look so down!” the officer said, waving his hand. “Gramps is an old man, isn't he? His time was bound to come sooner or later. Why don't you focus your energy into making his last moments as comfortable as practically possible?”

Lan Fan looked at Fu, sleeping on the leather-covered seat. He didn't look comfortable. He didn't look at peace. It had been so long since he had stood up on his own without the crutches of the Red Stone, and even then, he already sacrificed so much for her behalf. The only thing she ever wanted was to ease his burden just a little bit, to make him proud so that even though he had to leave his home and everything he loved behind, she could at least make him believe that it wasn't all a waste. Now, he would eventually go, leaving a life of suffering and disappointment. Suffering and disappointment that _she_ gave him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go! I had a hard time writing this chapter, not only because I've been terribly busy in real life, but because there's a lot going on. I mean, I like that there's a lot going on. This middle part is my favourite part of this story, because the different threads are coming together, but at the same time, it's difficult to make them all come together smoothly. Anyway, I have two more chapters for the middle part, and then I'll try to wrap things up from Chapters 11 to 15.
> 
> I don't know who I feel worse for: Lan Fan or Ling? Hehe. They won't see each other for a while, but when they do, I promise to up the LingFan. In the meantime, they'll be in each other's thoughts. Ling is pretty angry with her right now due to the misunderstanding, but he'll make up for it in later chapters. I promise he will.
> 
> Fun Fact: Yuna used to take Ling to her work when he was a toddler. Yuna runs a consulting business primarily as a liaison to entrepreneurs from Xing who want to expand their businesses to Amestris.
> 
> I hope you guys are enjoying the ride as much as I am!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for the late update again. I missed my monthly mark again, didn't I? But last month, I published a one-shot that I worked very hard on. That took more time to write than a chapter for this story. If you haven't checked it out, perhaps you'd like to take a look. It's set in the canon timeline of FMA, and it explores some ways in which Ling and Lan Fan can end up together officially.
> 
> I sincerely hope you guys are still interested in this story. I'm not getting a lot of feedback, so I'm not sure if I'm on the right track, or if you guys are losing interest. Let me know; I'm open to any kind of response! This is the first time I really planned out a story, and I am following an outline. In the grand scheme of things, the outline might look good to me, but on the chapter-level, I'm not exactly sure how things are turning out for you guys. I know what needs to happen to get me from point A to point B, but I don't know if getting there is a fun ride for my readers.
> 
> So yeah, let me know!

 

Henry Chu glanced at his watch, shifting his position to get a better look at the moon. There was one illicit pass to Creta, and it didn't have any street lamps, mainly for the sake of inconspicuousness, and secondly for the lack of an actual street. The pass was littered with nocturnal bandits, Cretan citizens who have formed a treacherous alliance to smuggle people and goods in and out of the country. They trusted very few.

Henry managed to bribe the passage authorities – at least, what passed for "authorities" as far as something illegal went – to allow him sole access to the passage for one night. He paid a hefty bribe, but all things considered, he didn't think it was too bad. Not any worse than other investments he made.

He would have preferred if his load was transferred via a truck. There was quite a lot of it, but alas, the terrain was not fit for anything with wheels. Instead he took fifteen of his men, packed them with camping gear, and filled their bags with the stones. Lots of them. His entire hoard.

"We're losing the moon," he declared over the queue of men and women walking on the skinny, rocky patch of land through the canyon that marked the border of Amestris and Creta. "If you don't want to walk through the complete dark, I suggest you speed up."

One of them stumbled, releasing a small cry of exhaustion.

"Careful with that!" he barked. "Half an inch of a rock in that bag costs more than your life. Probably more than your entire family's life!" Henry turned back to the path, swallowing his irritation. He sped up his pace, glancing with a wary eye at the Cretan brokers ahead of them, leading them safely through the passage. They didn't know what the bags contained; however, his insistence to monopolize the pass had probably already hinted at the value of their load. He would have to take care of the smugglers after they get to their appointed location.

Several more hours passed, and the clouds eclipsed the light of the moon just as soon as they exited the canyon. Waiting for them at the mouth of the passage were three vehicles, just as he ordered.

"Get in the cars," he told his men. "We've wasted too much time as it is."

Their destination was an abandoned warehouse tucked into the recesses of a particularly ragged hillside, many miles from the Amestris border. It once posed as a storage for a thriving business back when the plague hadn't crippled the Cretan economy yet. Now, the warehouse stood halfway to rotting, mirroring the rest of the countryside. Nowadays, only the richest of Cretans could afford some semblance of what used to be a decent lifestyle. Others, at least those who hadn't succumbed to the plague yet, were debilitated by the economic siege imposed by Creta's neighbours.

When they parked in front of the warehouse, Henry instructed his men to deposit their heavy burdens inside the crates in the rickety shed, and then to head up to the upper floor of the warehouse where he had some refreshments prepared. Glad to finally have some rest from their vigorous trip, the men and women eagerly followed his instructions. Which was just as well; Henry didn't want to have to pour the mugs of tainted soda down their throats himself.

After several moments, he followed them up the stairs to see if the work was done. A few bodies lay unmoving on the floor, and cracked mugs littered the wooden floorboards. Yet a few others were still conscious, grasping desperately to keep their pathetic lives. Henry sneered with indifference, pulled out his gun and shot them to help them along. Nobody liked hyperventilating, after all. He counted the bodies. Fifteen. Kneeling down, he inspected a few of them to ensure that their pulses were no longer there. When he was satisfied, he stood up and made his way back to the cars parked outside the warehouse.

Their Cretan guides were waiting for him, all of them tucked into a single car. They were mooning over the bag of cash he handed them at the beginning of their trip from the Amestrian border. It was the same bag he found in the apartment Manos informed him about. It contained the one and a half million sens that Auto-Mail hadn't used from what they borrowed. Here in Creta, that much Amestrian sens could feed three cities, so inflated was the value of their Cretan currency. No doubt that this was the largest amount of money any of them have seen in a while.

Henry headed for one of the now abandoned vehicles, and sat in the driver's seat. When one of the Cretans noticed that he was revving up the engine, he left his comrades for a moment to consult Henry.

"We're not waiting for the rest?" he asked in heavily accented Amestrian.

Henry barked a laugh. "You can wait for them, pal. You can wait for as long as you like."

The man narrowed his eyes and took a step back. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I didn't ask the pass to be vacated for the sake of vanity," Henry smirked. If the man was smart, then he would connect the dots himself. Nobody was supposed to know where Henry went or what he did here.

It took a while, but Henry watched as understanding dawned on the Cretan, and his eyes widened at the same time his hand automatically reached for the gun by his belt. But Henry was faster. He pressed a triggering device sitting on top of the car's dashboard, and the other cars in the vicinity exploded. The man by his window slammed against the side of his car, unhurt but shocked. He spun around to watch as violent flames engulfed the remains of his companions.

"Wh... what..." he stammered. "But the money..."

Henry laughed. The money was what this man was worrying about? Heh, Cretans really had become so desperate. He, on the other hand, was lucky enough to be insured for any money he happened to 'lose' while on the job. The entire one and a half million would be reimbursed by his insurance company.

In a moment of clarity, the man spun back around to face Henry, gun now gripped tightly on his hand.

He was too late, of course. Henry was waiting for that reaction, and had already pulled and aimed his own gun by the time the man faced him again. With one pull of his finger, the man fell motionlessly on the ground.

It was always good to be prepared.

Not like anyone from Amestris would dare cross the border, for fear of contamination. Which was why Creta was the safest place to hide his bargaining chip. No one would find it here; no one would think he would travel into this country willingly, but that was because very few knew about what he hid there in the first place.

From his pocket, Henry fingered a bottle of Red Stone, the only one he would be bringing back to Amestris for himself. It didn't matter if he became infected with the plague. He knew that the medicine would cure it. He made sure of that two years ago.

The trip back to Amestris would not be difficult. He had learned long ago, when he still lived in Xing, how to commit things to memory the first time he was exposed to them. He only needed the guides to lead him through the pass once.

-o-

Winry Rockbell turned off her computer, finishing the first batch of matches she ritually worked on every morning. Sighing profoundly, she allowed her head to fall on top of her desk, imagining that all the heaviness she felt inside of her would be carried along with her breath. She barely got any sleep the night before, much to the consternation of her tired mind and aching body. Sometimes, she still reeled from the events of the previous day, unable to imagine how horribly wrong things went.

"Winry!" she heard Garfiel's voice from the living room. "There's a fancy letter for you!"

Fancy? Well, this better not be one of Edward's skull-figure-laced atrocities. Not that she didn't appreciate the sentiment, but the visuals... eh, Edward's taste in art certainly didn't align with hers. She stood up from her desk and made her way to the living room, where Garfiel was waving a slim, brown package. Curious, she retrieved the parcel from him.

Her heart thudded suddenly when she was who it was from. XYZ Limited.

She ripped open the wrapper, and found out that it was a document. Termination of their contract. She grabbed a seat, and pored over the sheets.

Henry Chu was demanding immediate dissolution of their agreement. There would be no penalty. All they had to do was return the amount they borrowed plus the compounded interest accrued in the duration of their loan. Because he already acquired the remaining 1.575M sens from the borrowed sum, they only needed to worry about the other two and the interest.

Wait... what?

Winry's eyes retracted their steps and began again at the top of the paragraph. Slowly, she tried to digest what she just read.

One million and five hundred seventy five sens were in his possession. Already. It only confirmed one thing: Chu really was behind their downfall yesterday. He had orchestrated their failure. He already had the missing money in his possession.

However... he said remaining  _1.575_  million. That didn't make sense. There were over three million still untouched. She was sure of it, because she helped keep track of their expenses.

Winry swallowed. Where was the other two million?

She rushed back to her workroom, and dialed Edward's number.

"Ed, you need to come over really quickly," she said even before he finished saying hello.

"This isn't another one of your mushy-"

"Get over here now, or I'll credit two million from your bank account!"

"What the hell, Winry?" Edward shouted from the other end, but Winry could already hear the tell-tale signs of the boy flying out of bed and readying himself to leave.

It took about an hour for Ed to arrive, and by that time, Winry was violently pacing Garfiel's living room. She heard Garfiel moan quietly about the state of his carpets once or twice, but all her energy went into studying the document in her hands. It seemed almost too good. Chu would have no reason to retrieve the money unless he knew about their intention to frame him. She would have bet outright hostility from the man now that he knew what they were up to. And yet here he was, offering her no penalty. All they had to do was to return everything they borrowed with some interest. It sounded reasonable.

And that made her uneasy. Henry Chu didn't make his name by being  _reasonable_.

Edward burst through the door, panting visibly. Before he had a chance to complain at being dragged out of bed so early, Winry thrust the document toward him. He reluctantly took it out of her hands, and began to read.

He seemed to calm down after browsing through the sheets, but he did so in a dreading, contemplative manner.

"Have you told Ling about this?" he asked.

Winry shook her head. "He hasn't picked up his phone or responded to any of my messages since we departed from the hideout yesterday." She sighed, adding, "I don't think he's taking any of this well. I'm not sure how he'll respond to this news."

"It's unlike him to just hole up somewhere and pout!" Ed said. "C'mon, let's pay the shifty-eyed punk a little visit. He doesn't exactly have a choice. You know that we have to inform him."

Winry shrugged. Although this turn of events did mean that they no longer have to to scratch up four million sens to return to Chu, it did give an additional layer of fog, yet another piece of the puzzle they didn't know where to put. Part of her had hoped that they would find the missing money in its entirety.

They encountered Ling alone in his mansion.

He was busy rummaging through Lan Fan's room, pulling apart her drawers, setting aside whatever she had left behind. She didn't have many possessions, but he'd combined her belongings with the things he'd gathered from her grandfather's room.

"What are you doing?" Winry asked, as she sat down on what used to be Lan Fan's bed.

Ling sighed, running a hand through his bangs. "I was hoping to find a clue. If she really does work for my father, there had to have been a clue. Maybe one that can even help us figure out where the money went and what my father might be planning."

"She doesn't have a lot," Ed pointed out the obvious. "I don't know what you're going to deduce from any of this. Which is why you should be thankful that we're here. We have actual proof of what your damned father wants."

Ling paused, head snapping up to look at them expectantly.

Ed produced the mail from inside his sling bag. "Daddeo wants the money back. Apparently he already has some of it. He wants the rest immediately."

He handed the mail to Ling, who regarded it with one eyebrow raised, curious. He was silent as he read over the papers, but when he finished the last page, he heaved a loud, irritated sigh and plopped himself on Lan Fan's bed.

"You know what I want?" he said, stretching his arms out across the length of the bed. "I want one of those cheap mystery novels where you could just flip to the back of the book and read that one chapter near the end where the hero would explain everything. Every  _damn_  thing. And you feel so good, because it all makes sense, and that's where the real satisfaction comes from! You trudge through three hundred pages of guesswork, but that's okay, because you know that in the end, things would be clear."

"Ling..." Winry said, patting his hand near where she was sitting.

"Did anything come up from the cab investigation yesterday?" Ed asked. "Riza said they'd look into it."

Ling scrunched up his nose. "The cab that Lan Fan took was seen heading to Tobha near midnight." He took a pillow and covered his head with it. Winry knew the implication of what he had just said. She was aware that XYZ Ltd. had an office there and how Ling frequented it from time to time. If Lan Fan was heading to Tobha, that just implicated her involvement with Henry Chu even more.

"And then what happened?"

"The driver got back to his company shortly after. None of the cab drivers interviewed from Tobha during the rest of the night and the early morning saw a girl with one arm. The only thing of interest was that the local fire department responded to alarms from the office at 6:50 am yesterday. They found many of the furniture in the basement burned. Most of the employees were knocked out, and a couple of those coming to their senses reported an intruder."

"And your father?"

"Apparently, he shooed them away. Didn't even make a follow-up statement for the police."

"I'm not surprised," Winry commented. "You Dad usually takes care of his own issues. The only time he gets involved with the police is when he needs to cover up his own tracks."

"You think the intruder might be Lan Fan?"

Ling shrugged. "I honestly don't know what to think about her anymore."

"Anything about those guys who took Fu?" Ed asked. "Did the Colonel say anything about that?"

"No, not yet. I'm expecting a call from him today."

Ling stood up, running his hand again through his hair. Winry knew he only ever let his hair down this messily when he was too distracted to care about seeing clearly. Which was not a good sign. And for the first time, she didn't smell the tell-tale signs of lingering food in the mansion, which was always a constant presence at his house. To be fair, his mother left early, and they still didn't have any maids, but there was usually something – take out or instant noodle soup or a bad attempt at pasta. But there weren't any.

His eyes were rimmed with dark rings. He didn't wear his usual smile and his nonchalant ease.

"What are we going to do now, Ling?" she asked.

"For once, I wish somebody would tell me."

His cellphone rang. Lazily, Ling pushed himself off the bed and checked the number.

"Oh, so you do check your phone! I guess you were purposely ignoring me then, huh?" Winry jibed. Ling gave her a tired, apologetic shrug, but answered his phone.

"Havoc! What do you have for me?" he asked. His already exhausted expression turned even more morose when he listened to what the man was saying on the other side. "Wait... I don't understand! He's dead?"

Winry's heart dropped when she heard that. Ling continued to listen intently to the second lieutenant. She looked at Edward whose mood dipped as well.

When Ling hung up the phone, he looked at the two them somberly. "Hunter Manos died last night."

Dumbstruck, Winry was glad she was sitting down.

"His body was found in his cell. Cause of death was a fatal stab. The security cameras were compromised, because there was a gap of ten minutes, where Manos was alive before and then dead after. But nobody knows how or by whom it got bugged. The Colonel suspects that somebody from the inside is involved, but at this point in time, they're still investigating," Ling explained. "Several militants also changed their positions in the roster last minute for some urgent errands, so everyone is a little disorganized right now. That's why they couldn't tell us earlier."

Winry exhaled and placed her head in her hands. This was crazy. All of it.

What had she gotten herself into?

Edward's words, asking her if she was willing to put herself and Auto-Mail at risk to undermine Henry Chu, echoed in her memory. But at that time, she didn't think it was going to be this difficult, this... messed up. The plan had been so simple. It had had to be. How did they even manage to lose track of it like this? Things got way out of hand way too quickly, and now they were all reeling from it.

She looked up, and found Ling staring at the floor, Ed looking out the window.

"How do we get back on track?" she asked. "Nothing makes sense anymore."

Ling shook his head. "No, there is no getting back on track anymore. We end this," he said, looking both disappointed and desperate at the same time. "You said my father wants the rest of your debt and the interest? I'll give it to you. I'll borrow some money from Ma, and you can pay him. That's how we'll end this."

"But the operation-" Edward began, but Ling cut him off.

"There's no more operation. It's clear that we're treading on places we have no knowledge about. It's too risky to continue. I failed," he sighed, looking squarely in their eyes. "I admit it. I failed again, and I'm so, so sorry. But this isn't the time for a pity-party. I'm cleaning up this mess."

"But XYZ Ltd. will continue to run its damn business!" Edward protested. "The whole point of this thing is to stop it."

"And it's obvious that we can't!" Ling said. "Not without incurring more casualties in the short-term. Guys, we're freaking  _eighteen_! The more I involve myself in these stupid little hero daydreams the more I realize that we are not ready for something like this. Let's not risk anymore people's lives for this."

"And how about the lives that will continue to be at risk just for the sole reason that 7-11 exists?"

Ling shook his head. "Honestly, I don't know anymore. I don't think I ever did! But hasn't it ever occurred to you that maybe we're not the right people to take care of the problem? That maybe we're just making things worse?"

Edward didn't respond to that. Winry found that she couldn't either. She had no answer.

"I know that I used to think it was better for me to take action than to do nothing," Ling continued. "Because I thought that everyone else was just afraid. I thought that because I had all these privileges, that maybe I am more immune to my father's wiles. That maybe it was up to me."

"So now we're going to do nothing?" Ed asked.

"Now we're going to stop acting like idiots," Ling answered. Almost as if to point out that he wasn't willing to argue right now, he turned around and began collecting Lan Fan's things into a bag. Winry had known Ling for many years now, and she knew that he wasn't the type of person to let his pride get in the way. She had an inkling that he was taking this failure on a different level than just nursing a bruised ego.

-o-

Lan Fan looked up at the old, dirty, shabby house. It tilted slightly to the left, as if keen to follow the westbound wind. The corrugated roofing sheets were rusty, some of them balancing precariously on top of the house, unmindful of their nail guards. The walls were yellowed and moldy, and there was a stench that wafted through the open windows.

"Welcome to your new house!" Major Xie exclaimed with an amused smirk.

Well.

Lan Fan sighed as she shifted her hold against her grandfather, who was little better than unconscious, leaning heavily against her right side. The house didn't look as bad as some of the things that she had had to live in back in Amestris, but who knew. First impressions were rarely correct.

An unkind push sent her stumbling up the steps, following Xie as he unlocked the door. Lan Fan frowned in severe distaste as the nauseating odour grew stronger, a sure sign that the place was not the healthy haven that her grandfather needed especially right now. What were they thinking of doing? Try to kill him as much fast as possible? And then what?

There were sad, well-used furniture littering the floor. A low couch with a flattened cushion and coarse coverings stood off by the left wall, right below a window that looked out into nothing but the brick wall of the next house. The floor was nothing but cement with occasional stains. There was a small gas stove near the back of the house, connected to a tank of gas. The furthest corner was covered by a curtain, hiding what she assumed was the bathroom.

Somehow she doubted that whoever built this had any intention to add any separate rooms. The entire house was just four large walls, plus a short one for the side of the bathroom. Funny how she lived for only a few short weeks in the opulence of Ling's mansion and already this seemed too bleak for her. She steeled herself, knowing that this wasn't the worse she'd had to endure before.

She spent the rest of the day cleaning and tidying the little house, so that her grandfather could lie down. The place was disgusting to say the least, and the only source of water was an indoor pump in the bathroom that gurgled out brown, murky water at first. As she kept on pumping, eventually the water cleared up, but she had no doubt that it was still contaminated. She boiled some water on the small range using a pot she found upturned in a corner. She briefly wondered who had occupied this place before, but put that thought out of her mind to concentrate on her tasks. When the water cooled down, she tried to freshen up Fu as much as she was able, but since they had no change of clothes, there wasn't much she could do.

When the sun was about to set, a group of Xingese entered the house. Lan Fan was startled to see them come in, surprised that the Major and his officers allowed them to pass through.

"These will be your babysitters," informed Major Xie in Xingese. Lan Fan had a distinct feeling that Xie didn't want the Amestrian militants to know exactly what he was saying. "As you know, Amestrian militants cannot prolong their stay here without piquing the suspicions of the local militia. But Henry Chu has arranged for your er... safekeeping with some of his loyal fellows here in the city. They'll make sure you have all the things you need."

As if on cue, one of them dropped a sack filled with cured meat and fresh vegetables. Lan Fan eyed it reluctantly. Although she hadn't eaten a full meal since the night of Operation Greed, she was wary to receive anything from any of these people.

One woman from the new group sauntered around the house, inspecting the place. "Ugh Xie, why did you have to pick the ugliest place in Yán city? This is no better than a sewer." She stopped in front of Lan Fan, and eyed the girl with mild interest. Lan Fan was only a few inches shorter than her. Lan Fan glared, to which the woman shrugged indifferently.

"How long do we have to stay here?" the woman asked Xie again.

"Until grandpa dearest breathes his last breath," he answered. "And then it's up to Chu to decide what he wants to do with the girl."

"I think we can speed things up a bit, don't you?" a portly, red-cheeked man in his prime suggested. Lan Fan turned around to face him, her fists curling with anger.

"His last,  _natural_  breath," Xie clarified. "Don't rile up the girl, too much."

"I have a name!" Lan Fan spat.

Xie smiled. "See what I mean?"

He then gathered up his things and told the rest of the Amestrian officers that it was time they head back to the west. The woman from earlier produced a set of documents that proved that the prisoners were to be left alone with them.

When they were gone, the woman turned lazily to Lan Fan. "My name is Mámù. I'm in charge here. It doesn't look as if you want to be here, and neither do I, so now we've established something we have in common. I hear that's usually a good place to start tolerable relationships, or so they say. I don't really care. Now, you can do whatever you want, so long as you don't leave this place, don't cause trouble, or do anything that is conducive to you leaving this place or causing trouble. Do you understand?"

Lan Fan looked at her while she was speaking. Her hair was a little frizzy and most of it was pulled back in a low ponytail. The rest acted like a bushy frame for her face, which did not look old, but had the telltale signs of aging spots across the bridge of her nose. She didn't look like she could cause too much trouble, but neither did Lan Fan, and she of all people knew what it was like not to look combative.

"Hello? Do... you... speak... Xingese?" Mámù asked in a low, punctuated tone as if she was speaking to a simpleton. Lan Fan blinked and nodded her head. "Good."

Lan Fan looked around and found three people standing guard by the door. Through the windows on one side of the house, she saw one woman and a man smoking, and she could feel the presence of two other people by the southern most wall. They didn't look like police or militants, not in the Amestrian way she was familiar with; they looked like ordinary people, which made Lan Fan wonder whether they were trying to be inconspicuous or they really were just normal people who were baited with money to keep an eye on her.

"That's for you," Mámù stated, indicating the bag of food.

"For dinner?" Lan Fan asked. There was a lot of it inside. Certainly more than she and her grandfather could eat in one meal.

"Yes, for dinner, and lunch, and dinner and lunch. All throughout the week. Make it last," Mámù answered, and Lan Fan's heart fell with the revelation. There was enough for two regular sized meals, but to stretch it for seven days? They would have very tiny portions!

Swallowing her disappointment, she took the bag from the floor and began rummaging through it to see how she would ration it. It wasn't like they haden't scrimped on food before; she knew how to do it. What she was more worried about was that her grandfather needed as much nourishment as possible if she were to try her best to keep him alive. At least before, they had the extra benefit of actually having the Red Stone to help him along.

Setting to work, she went to the kitchen area of the small house and began cleaning and preparing for their dinner. She could think of little to cook, besides some brothy mix of vegetables and small strips of meat. When she finished, she woke her grandfather to feed him some of the food.

"Where are we?" he grumbled in the local dialect of Tong Hua that he taught her.

Lan Fan shrugged. "Yan City, I heard. But I'm not certain where that is exactly." Even though she had been attentive during their travel to this place, the familiar landmarks and signs that Amestris used to distinguish cities and towns and districts were non-existent in Xing. She didn't know if they used something else that she wasn't looking out for, or perhaps they just didn't bother in the poorer parts of the country, which this place was undeniably part of.

Fu nodded weakly, and she spooned him some more soup. When he couldn't eat anymore, she began to eat the leftovers. It was about this time that a man came in carrying large paper bags of hot, fresh take-out, assaulting Lan Fan's nose with the scent of lemongrass and sesame oil and the aroma of authentic Xingese cuisine. Her stomach gurgled in protest as she watched the man and his comrades share the food between them. They noticed her watching, and laughed to themselves. Even Mámù took some of the food.

Lan Fan snorted. Whatever. It wasn't like she hadn't had lived more than half her life watching people more fortunate than her flaunt their flamboyant lifestyles while she and her grandfather scraped whatever they could find just to get by.

She finished her meal quickly. When she turned to begin cleaning up, some of the laughter got louder. She ignored them. She stowed the garbage in a bag, and made for the doorway until a man blocked her.

"No going outside, sweetie," he said in a low, gruff voice. He crossed his burly arms and stood right at the door.

"Then  _you_  take the trash out," Lan Fan grumbled, shoving the half-filled bag to his chest. He caught it.

"Sure," he said, shrugging. "And while I'm at it, I guess I should throw out any left-overs." And with that, he crammed into the bag some of the untouched food from their take-out that none of his comrades had claimed for themselves. Shocked, Lan Fan could only watch as the perfectly good, delicious food went into the bag to mix with the mess it already contained. She must have looked rather horrified, as the man and his peers burst out laughing.

Giving her a sympathetic look, he handed the bag back to her. "What, changed your mind? Don't feel like throwing it out anymore?"

He let out a wheezing laughter, and Lan Fan felt her face burn with a rush of indignation and disgust. Her fist flew out before she could stop herself, and it struck him on the jaw; the force of her punch launched him backwards, and he hit the door so hard it opened and he toppled out of the house. Suddenly everyone else quieted down, and before Lan Fan could prepare herself, she felt a foot hit her against her ribs. She crumpled to the ground, as the onslaught of attacks came raining down on her. She tried to get up, and managed to pull a punch or two, but with many of them and just one of her, as well as her disadvantageous start, she was quickly overcome.

She landed on a heap on the floor, and she felt the weight of a boot press against her temple. Amidst the melee she heard Mámù's voice call out for pause.

There was shifting among themselves, then she heard Mámù speak closely to her ear.

"I thought we understood each other a minute ago," she whispered. "Looks like we haven't. If you're going to be this difficult, I will assure you right here, right now, that we're going to be even moreso." The man lifted his foot from Lan Fan's face, and Mámù pulled Lan Fan up by her only arm. Lan Fan cried out, feeling pain spark along her midriff. Mámù settled her against the wall and crouched in front of her.

"Why don't you make it easy for yourself, alright?"

Lan Fan coughed a bit, feeling some constriction in her middle, and she spotted the red dots that fell on the skin of her arm. She gave Mámù a nasty look, hoping it was enough for the woman to realize exactly just what Lan Fan thought of her without her having to talk.

"Now, don't be like that. You'll save so much more of your precious energy if you just start licking your wounds." Mámù threw her a piece of rag that Lan Fan assumed she was supposed to use to clean herself up. Grunting, she made her way slowly and shakily to the bathroom.

-o-

Lan Fan couldn't sleep.

She had spread a thin blanket on the floor beside the only couch in the house on which her grandfather lay. Her body throbbed where she had taken the severest beating. And even though she was exhausted from the traveling and the worry and the cleaning, sleep still evaded her truest efforts to put herself to rest.

Something nagged at her. A restlessness tugged at the edge of her senses.

Lan Fan looked around and found Mámù also awake, sitting by the sill of the window near Fu's couch. She must have felt Lan Fan's gaze, because the woman turned to regard her with a neutral expression. It irked Lan Fan to feel so miserable while some person was just staring at her as if everything was okay – they were all watching her grandfather die, for goodness's sake!

"How much does Henry Chu pay you for this?" Lan Fan asked in a quiet, bitter voice.

"He doesn't," Mámù answered in the same nonchalance she had exhibited so far, making it appear as if working for the loan shark was as simple a matter as weather.

Lan Fan frowned. "Then why are you doing this?"

"Because I'm getting something better than money," she answered. "I'm getting the survival of my village."

Lan Fan's frown deepened. Blackmail, then? It was not unheard of; many of XYZ Ltd.'s employees were once Chu's adversaries whom he found useful to some level, and blackmailed into working for him. They usually had high stakes, because Chu would never want to risk them turning their backs against him, which was otherwise likely.

"It's not what you think," Mámù continued. "Henry and I are from the same village. Let me be blunt, because these games that he likes to play, I don't. To be honest, I don't really care much about what he does... with the exception of this one thing. I am a native of the Píngyuán area in the Chu province. The new leaders of the Xing Republic is trying to open up Xing's market to the entire continent, starting with Amestris. It could mean devastation to the poorer, humbler workers of Píngyuán who would be in direct competition with their Amestrian counterparts."

Lan Fan's confusion did not ease, but she tried to hide that as best as she could. Mámù was giving her some vital piece of information, something that she was sure Chu would not carelessly toss out even to his most trusted peers.

She remembered suddenly the night she spent with Rose and Ling back at his home, browsing through pages and pages of articles, trying to catch a glimpse of what his father was aiming for. There had been some news of the business man meeting with Amestris's Minister of Trade. President Grumman also was in the midst of drafting a free-trade agreement with Xing. Lan Fan was certain all these things were connected.

"I can hear the gears in your head turning," Mámù snickered. "So let me help you out a bit. Many Xingese is pushing for the free-trade agreement. It will benefit most of them. And those that don't... well, nobody cares about us to begin with, so why start now?"

Lan Fan didn't know why. As much as her grandfather had taught her about her Xingese roots and the political atmosphere during the time they escaped Tong Hua, there was still a lot she didn't know about Xingese history and culture.

"Henry wants to stop them.  _I_  want to stop them. But the problem with lowly people like me is that nobody will listen. So I sought Henry out. And he figured out a plan to pressure the leaders of both countries not to go through with it. Before you ask, no, he did not tell me his plan. But he has one. And it's not in my place to question it. All I know is that it will save our village and our province, because ever since he has come into prominence, all Henry ever tried to do was to save our stupid, little, forsaken piece of land."

"What are you talking about?" Lan Fan could almost laugh, if it weren't for the pain in her ribs. "All Henry Chu ever did ever since he came into prominence is make people's lives miserable."

"Oh?" Mámù arced an eyebrow, and the simple gesture made Lan Fan feel a little self-conscious. "He routes millions of sens to keep the Píngyuán municipality afloat. It's underground, of course, otherwise it will be liable to taxes. But since Xing became a Republic and the leader is no longer required to ensure that each major Family is appeased, the Chu province has degenerated. Henry is one of the reasons it is still alive."

Lan Fan shook her head. "I don't understand. What's so bad about the free trade? Why can't your people just find other work if they can't compete?"

Mámù snorted as if Lan Fan's question was so uneducated. She even chuckled a little. "Yeah, well the rest of Xing would certainly like that, wouldn't they? You would too, I think. It would be easier for you to believe that Henry is just being selfishly difficult, instead of trying to understand that he actually has a reason for doing the things he does."

Lan Fan didn't know if she felt insulted, or dumbfounded at how someone could be so blind to their atrocities. It seemed to her that it if Mámù was saying the truth, then Henry Chu was outrageously single-minded, caring only about so few people in expense of the hundreds, if not thousands, he'd injured while running his ludicrous operations.

But then...

She herself had jeopardized Ling's entire mission just for the sake of one person: her grandfather.

Disturbed, she turned around with difficulty, and tried to get some rest.

-o-

Ling didn't wallow. Not in self-pity at least. He wallowed in anything but that; there were house chores, maid-hunting, a bucket of homework, potato-couching...

He already sold some of his better stocks in an effort to get money to give to Edward and Winry. But other than that, he tried not to think too much about Operation Greed. Whenever he did, a lethargic ooze overcame him, draining him into an apathetic lump.

"You know, you might feel a little better if you go out for a bit," his mother urged him, placing a bowl of miso soup in front of him. At this point, only food could make him feel better.

"Go out where?" Ling asked. "I don't have anywhere to go to, or anything to do."

"Go to your campus, make some friends, visit your professors' office hours!" Yuna exclaimed. "Sometimes I think you forget, amidst you playing superhero, that you're still an eighteen year old boy who needs to get educated."

"Ugh, trust me Ma, if there's anything I got from all this, it's the fact that I need to get educated." Ling took a sip of his soup, allowing the warmth to stream down his throat. "How about you? I don't understand how you're so unaffected! You've always been!"

Yuna shrugged. "I'm not unaffected, Ling. I'm just... calmer."

The phone rang, and Yuna bent over the kitchen island to fetch it from the wall.

"Hello?" she spoke. "Ah, Falman! Is there any news?"

Ling looked at her, and she looked back with an eager expression. When she finished the phone call, she told him, "The Colonel wants us to meet Falman at the old hideout by the bluffs. He says he got some news."

Ling finished up his soup, and joined his mother to go to the bluff hideout. They found Falman waiting for them by the entrance, wearing something that looked like it came out of a fishing magazine. He waved them over when he saw them.

"Sorry for getting back so late," he began. "Things have been very busy at the precinct, and we've been scrambling to get back on top of things, much less sort out the fallout from two days before."

"Look, I'm really sorry-"

"Don't apologize," Falman interrupted Ling. "At least not yet. There's still a lot of pieces left falling into place."

The caught Ling off guard. " _Into_  place?'

Falman nodded. "You already know about Hunter Manos's death, right? He was killed shortly after we brought him in for interrogation. Havoc couldn't tell you right away, because it was chaotic at the station – five high-ranked officers were pulled from their roster for an emergency errand. Several more from Central and East Area were routed to patrol the train route across the dessert to Xing."

"To  _Xing_?" Yuna parroted.

"Yes, that's right. Lieutenant Hawkeye prodded and found out that they were assisting in a deportation. This morning, I managed to acquire the records for the warrant. It was for Lan Fan and Fu."

Ling narrowed his eyes. "Lan Fan mentioned that they never actually became naturalized citizens of Amestris. But they've been hiding here successfully for sixteen years. Who tipped in the officials?"

"It wasn't written," the warrant officer answered. "But let's think about this for a moment. If Lan Fan was conspiring with Chu, what reason is there for her to be evacuated? So soon after the failure of Operation Greed, no less. She needs medical aid for her grandfather, and if that's what she's after in Xing, why go through the guise of deportation?"

"But that's assuming that Lan Fan was working with Chu in the first place," Yuna butted in. "And it doesn't make sense. It is obvious that Chu handles the distribution of the Red Stone himself, so Lan Fan would never go to Xing to have her grandfather cured. She would stay here, because this is where her only hope is."

"That is exactly what I am thinking," Falman admitted. "The deportation warrant is real. It bears the Seal of the Immigration Bureau. In the eyes of the government, Lan Fan was an illegal immigrant for a decade and a half. She should have been severely penalized. Instead of being sent to prison or a work camp, she was sent back to Xing."

"What are you saying?" Ling asked, mind whirring with the different ramifications of the news.

"She had an arbitrator," Falman concluded. "Someone with enough power that the usual punishments got overturned."

"My father?" Ling asked. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know the real reason, but whatever it is, it involves Lan Fan being away from here, away from Amestris."

"... and away from the Red Stone," Ling added after a while. Falman was right – there were pieces falling into place, but the image they construed was still nebulous and unexpected. Everything hinged on Lan Fan's relationship with his father. Had she really been his ally, her deportation made very little sense from a strategic perspective. Lan Fan made an incredible spy and she was manageable so long as his father had access to Fu. But he had sent both of them away. And if she really was working with Henry Chu, Lan Fan would never agree to leave her home to go back to a country she hardly knew. Chu wouldn't want that either – she would hardly be useful there.

Chu's maneuver implied that he wanted Lan Fan and Fu out of the way. It was possible that they had a falling out... or perhaps that they were never allies in the first place.

"But suppose they weren't working together. Why would Chu  _not_  kill Lan Fan and Fu like he often did with people who threatened him?" Ling asked.

"Well it's a good thing he didn't so we actually have a chance to ask her!" Yuna exclaimed, as if he was being particularly stupid. And maybe Ling was, but at the same time, he also didn't want to jump to conclusions anymore, no matter how easy it was to come to those.

"But that's a good question, Ling," Falman added. "Because we actually have exactly one dead body on our hands, so you have to wonder who really was a threat to Henry Chu. Here is Colonel Mustang's theory. Hunter Manos was the rat, and they wanted to frame Lan Fan for it. The reason she lives and he doesn't is so that we have a false trail to sniff, our hopes flamed alive with thoughts of revenge, while Chu can proceed smoothly without us on his back."

He allowed the two of them to let this hypothesis sink in. Yuna looked at Ling, but the Xingese boy returned it only with a hesitant shrug.

A loud vibration interrupted their conversation, and Falman reached into his breast pocket, then pulled out his phone. His expression turned grave as he listened to the other speaker. When he finished, he turned to them, as he began walking out to the parking lot.

"There's an incident at the LeCoulte's home," he told them. "A bunch of supposed delinquents drove by shooting at the house. The police are on the scene, and the paramedics are taking Ridel to the hospital."

"Delinquents, my ass!" Ling exclaimed, knowing full well that something like this would not have happened unless it was related to the operation. Goodness, it was starting to be a horrible week for phone calls.

He climbed into the passenger seat of his mother's car. She wasted no time starting and revving up the engine, and within minutes, they were out of the vicinity, climbing onto the bridge to the highway. She was concentrating on maneuvering them expertly around the vehicles littering the road. Ling felt the force of the acceleration pin him against the seat, and when they rounded a bend, the seat belt dug cruelly against his shoulder and ribs.

"Ma, I think you should slow down a bit," he called out to his mother. "It won't do us any good if we arrive there in pieces."

"I'm trying," she said.

"No really, Ma. Slow down," Ling said.

"And I really  _am_  trying!" she exclaimed, narrowly missing the trunk of a slower car ahead as she swerved into the adjacent lane. "I know I have a penchant for reckless driving but do you honestly think I'll do something like that at a time like this?" Yuna grunted, gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"Then what  _are_  you doing? We're too fast!" Ling yelled, watching in horror as they quickly approached the rear of an eight-wheeler. He heard the brakes slapping the bottom of the car as his mother pounded the instrument with her foot. A horrific feeling washed over Ling as he realized what was going on.

"Our car is rigged!"

"Oh, you noticed  _now_? God, give me some credit, son!" Yuna shifted in her seat, a look of determination and challenge coming over her face. "Well at least they picked the right wench for the job. Ha, it's almost like your father doesn't know how I drive!" She veered to the right so sharply, Ling's head almost hit the glass window. "But then again, he was always too afraid to get in the same car with me."

With a rather maniacal laughter, Yuna adjusted her grip on the steering wheel with one hand. With the other, she reached out for the parking brake, and began to pull on it. It gave way almost immediately, but their speed did not decrease at all. She frowned, but did not lose her composure. Ling heard the panicked and angry honks the other vehicles were sending their way, but each one disappeared from their earshot within seconds, so quickly the car was moving.

"It's ok. We have state-of-the-art airbags in this car. If we crash, we'll still be alright," she explained. "We just need to find a safe place to crash."

"What the? We have state-of-the-art  _airbags_  and you couldn't get us better brakes?" Ling shot back. "And there is no such thing as a safe place to crash!"

"Have we passed the exit to Bluffside Lake?" Yuna asked.

"You want to crash into a  _lake_?"

"You want to crash into something else?" she yelled. "Now tell me if we've passed it."

"Uh.. no, not yet, but it's up there coming right at us, like right now!" Ling informed her, and Yuna steered sharply to the right, dangerously cutting off the cars in the next two lanes. They narrowly missed the exit, the bumper of their car scraping heavily against the edge of the metal gate separating the ramp from the highway. Ling covered his ears against the ear-piercing screech of metal against metal. He lurched forward as the car behind them couldn't quite slow down sufficiently before they had cut in and it crashed against the side of their trunk. But his mother couldn't slow down, and they sped through the ramp and out to the road.

Yuna left dust clouds in her trail. Their wheels rolled on white, dirty smoke, and Ling was afraid to look back and see the kind of chaos they had left behind. His mother switched lanes frequently, honking loudly to warn cars, and yelling a half-hearted apology as they passed by. Soon enough, Ling could finally see the outline of the small lake on the horizon, growing larger and larger with their fast approach.

"Roll down your window," Yuna said. "We can get out during the floating period."

They were reaching the bank of the lake, cultivated for picnic areas and BBQ spots for families. The people lounging there hurriedly left their spots, screaming for all they were worth; the car ran over plastic chairs and tables, toppled over grills and coolers. A hammock momentarily covered their windshield, and by the time it flew off, the car was coasting on the edge of the bank.

Ling felt a split-second of weightlessness, before the impact against the lake's water wreaked havoc on his senses. His inertia pushed him against his seat belt so tightly he thought he would rip it out from its base on the wall. For a few moments, all he could see through the windshield was the grayish, sediment-filled lake water, and it wasn't long after that the water crept through his open window and began to swallow up the bottom of the car.

He fiddled with his seat belt, and quickly tried to squeeze through the window. The lake was deep, but nothing about it was overly violent or dangerous. Ling had to spend only minimal effort to keep himself afloat. He swam to the edge of the lake, and crawled out, looking back only once to see if his mother was okay.

He stretched himself on the grassy patch of land by the side of the lake, and waited for his mother to follow him. She crawled up beside him to lie on the ground, panting heavily.

"I think... your father is trying to kill us," she said in between gasps.

"You  _think_?" Ling said. He thought about the attempt on the LeCoultes, and now on them. For sure Edward and Winry would be next. He pushed himself up off of the ground. So much for his lethargic lounging. There was no way he could just patch this up like a quilt and forget about it. There was no back-pedaling anymore. It was clear that his operation had propelled them to a place where it was just as risky to go back than to go forward.

From the distance, he could hear the sirens of police cars and ambulance. He was suddenly afraid for all the people they might have hurt along their route to the lake. He turned around to look at the damage their trek had done. It was not pretty.

"Are you alright?" Yuna asked, as she stood up shakily.

"I'm fine, but..." Ling trailed off. "This is insane."

He was wrong. For the millionth time in a row. What he told Ed and Winry the previous day was motivated by fear, naivety and wishful thinking. The reality was that  _these_  – the threats, the murder attempts – would only continue if he didn't do anything. They would happen not only to himself, but to his friends, and even people he didn't know, ones that may not be as well-protected as he was. Those were the kinds of things that he wanted to stop in the first place, ever since he found out the truth about XYZ Ltd.

Yes, it was true that perhaps he was never the best person to tackle that problem initially. But now, it didn't matter. He had placed himself in a predicament where he could no longer extract his involvement. His father would never turn the other cheek anymore; Ling had made his mark, and his father would always be on the lookout. Nobody would be safe from this point on. The only way to truly save themselves was to uproot the source of the problem.

"Ling, I... I don't think you should stay here anymore," Yuna said after a minute.

"But the police would want to question me," he answered, looking at his mother.

"That's not what I meant. I think you should leave Amestris."

"What? Why?"

Yuna spread her arms to take in the entire scene. "I was hoping that all this would be a pretty big motivation."

"And leave my friends to that scum's wrath? I'll never do such a thing!"

"Ling, you're in danger. Yes, your friends might be too, but would you rather go to a place where you'll be able to device a plan to help them, or stay here where trying to watch out for others might mean a knife in the back? Because let's face it, it's a little hard to help your friends when you're dead."

"I'm not running away, Ma."

"It's not running away, if what you're running towards can help you even more than if you stay here," she said.

That caught his attention. "What are you saying I should do?"

"Go to Xing. Find Lan Fan."

Lan Fan. It was true that she would have the answer to everything. Well, at least to a lot more than they have access to, but he didn't know if he was willing to put his bets in her hands again. He didn't even know what kind of connection she had with his father.

"I will call your grandfather, and he can arrange for your stay. He will help you," his mother added. Ling only met his maternal grandfather once, and the old man was quirky enough to be influential, but Ling wasn't sure if he could stand up against Henry Chu. Lan Fan though could be kept in a leash if...

"Okay. But I will talk it over with Edward and Winry first. They've got more to worry about than anyone else," Ling said. "As for Lan Fan... do you remember the Colonel's contact who specializes in documentation and paperwork?"

"Sheska?"

"Yes. I need to talk to her too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again that this chapter was late! Whew, I'm really busy IRL. I was promoted to full-stack developer, and the learning curve eats up some of my otherwise free time. Also, my family and I are house-hunting. Finally, I am learning how to drive. So yeah, busy, busy, busy.
> 
> Oh, and if you guys didn't know, the previous week was LingFan week on Tumblr! I highly suggest you go to lingfanweek's blog to check out the amazing collection of fanworks that people created over the week. I made a couple of pieces there too.
> 
> I also have to apologize if this is a little choppy. Actually, I don't know if it's choppy. Does it seem so? Let me know how I'm doing! Even if it's just to tell me that Ling is boring in this chapter. Haha, I really found him boring. But I guess it's because I'm comparing him to how he'd appear next chapter, which would be... dashing and cool. Hopefully. Hehe.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: What is this? Is this an update after two weeks?
> 
> That's right folks. I looked forward to writing this chapter for so, so, so long. And I figure, I really should get to wrapping up Part 2 of the story. I can't believe this is the 10th chapter! I haven't written 10 chapters for anything, since I was 13! Haha, I guess I should be proud of this milestone.
> 
> Thanks to those who read and reviewed my previous chapter!

Edward felt a hand lightly grip his shoulder. Looking to his side, he found Winry settling down on the hospital bench beside him. From her drawn, somber face, he knew that she wasn't going to deliver any good news from her phone call.

“Ling is not coming,” she told him. “He and his mother were in a car accident.”

Edward swore, feeling dread dissipate into a simmering stew of anger.

“Calm down,” Winry's hold on his shoulder tightened with reassurance that was so distinctly hers. “They are okay. They were questioned briefly by the cops to determine what happened. Mrs. Yao said she's on her way here, but she managed to convince Ling to take a trip to Xing, for his safety's sake.”

Ed stood up from the bench, Winry's hand sliding off of his arm. It took all his self-control not to turn around and punch the wall behind him, a habit he was accustomed to doing when pressure became too much. The hospital was supposed to be a quiet, safe place for the sick, and not to mention, the room right behind him was where Ridel was under operation. The man took two bullets, one on the leg, and one on the side of the back. His entire study was destroyed. His wife and new baby were lucky enough to have been thoroughly protected by being at the farthest room in the house, but Ridel's workroom was peppered with bullet holes by the time the militants arrived.

Edward knew that it was no coincidence. The LeCoultes lived in a relatively safe part of the city, and nobody could blame what happened on delinquents or gangs. Ridel fronted as a freelance developer, and his work for Auto-Mail was less known among the public. So soon after Hunter Manos's death, and now, tailed by the Yaos' road accident, the LeCoulte's shooting was definitely an attack against Auto-Mail.

Breathing in deeply, Edward sat back down beside Winry and leaned close to her. Whispering in her ear, he said, “Why don't I just kill Henry Chu in his sleep?”

It was meant to be a joke, but it did nothing to diffuse the anger in his chest.

“You know why,” Winry whispered back. “I can't let you stoop that low.”

Ed groaned, hoping that vocalizing his frustration in this way made for a much more hospital-friendly expression than punching through walls, but a nurse walked by and shushed him. He scowled at her.

From the corner of the hallway, Satella LeCoulte, Ridel's wife, walked towards them, holding the baby in her arms. She looked terrified.

“Satella, it's going to be fine,” Winry reassured the woman. “Lieutenant Hawkeye had already issued for militants to safeguard you and your family.”

“I know,” Satella replied. “But it doesn't make me feel better thinking about what could have happened, you know. I think... I think that after Ridel recovers, it would be best if he stays out of Auto-Mail for a while.”

Winry didn't respond to that, and Edward knew what she was thinking. Ridel's software powered Auto-Mail's computer networks. And while the software was usable even if Ridel didn't work on it, its maintenance required frequent attention from the man. Not to mention, with the quick expansion of Auto-Mail, and the increasing complexity of the matches, Ridel often resorted to creating new algorithms to improve the software.

“I'm sorry,” Satella continued. “Auto-Mail is a big part of our lives, but at the rate things are going... I'm not sure if it's safe to continue.”

“You know, it might not be safe even if Ridel does stop working,” Edward pointed out.

Satella's lips quivered. “Then I don't know what is safe and what isn't anymore!” she cried, and buried her face in her baby's soft clothes. Her son began to wail, sensing his mother's distress. Winry glared at Ed, and he slumped against the wall, pouting.

“Edward didn't mean it like that,” Winry said softly, rubbing the woman's shoulders. “What he meant was that there are always going to be risks, and at this point in time, we're really groping in the dark. None of us can predict what's going to happen.”

Satella lifted her head, sniffing a little. She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small note, which she handed to Winry.

“Here,” she told them. “I found this stuck on Ridel's work desk when I came down to check on him after the shooting happened.”

Ed watched as Winry unfolded the piece of paper. He cringed as he read what was written.

_I hate to say 'No Pressure,' because in my business, it is anything but. I hope that we understand each other._ _~Henry_

“Ugh, what a swine,” Winry said, crumpling up the piece of paper.

Satella shook her head. “No, don't do that. You can use it as evidence. Don't you want to report him to the police?”

“I'm sure tons of people have filed reports, but he's still not behind bars, isn't he?” Ed mumbled.

“You act as if there's nothing you can do.”

“There is, I'm sure of it,” Edward said rather weakly. “I just don't know what it is right now. But Henry Chu is human like all of us, so he's bound to make a mistake sooner or later.”

And perhaps one of the things that irritated Edward more than anything else was the loan shark's apparent infallibility. Almost everyone he knew loathed the man, but nobody could do anything about it. Everyone was paralyzed by fear. But Edward knew that it was impossible for someone to be so invincible. They were just missing something. That was all. And if they could somehow eradicate their own blind spots, then the playing field would level out.

They were so close this time around. They really were. It didn't matter what Ling thought. Edward wasn't going to just let the operation dissipate, especially not when people he cared about was getting attacked left and right. He could see the pattern. For sure, he and Winry, or maybe his brother and some of his other friends, were next. For some reason, he felt more challenged than afraid. Let Chu do his worst then. Let him.

They stayed at the hospital, waiting for the doctors to come out of the operating room. After a couple of hours, Yuna came bounding towards them, looking a little less refined than she usually did. Her clothes were rumpled, and her hair sported some fly-away strands and frizzy ends.

“Mrs. Yao!” Winry exclaimed, standing up and extending a comforting embrace to the older woman. “How are you doing now? Are you okay? Is Ling okay?”

Yuna nodded, taking a seat beside Ed at the edge of the bench. Winry handed her the paper that Satella had given her earlier.

“Apparently, shooting houses and rigging cars are just your ex-husband's way to remind his clients to pay up,” Winry said. “He wants the two million, four hundred something thousand paid as soon as possible.”

“Ling had told me about the termination of the contract,” Yuna said. “It seems to me as if he wants to sever all ties with Auto-Mail. Usually when his clients find themselves in a pinch, Henry would stall as long as possible, milking the interest out of the loans.”

“Are you sure?” Ed asked. “I don't know, but it seems to me that if he wants us to pay up as soon as possible, shouldn't he be making our lives a bit easier? You know, not putting holes in the walls of our houses, and fiddling with car brakes, so that our expenses don't actually spike up through the roof?”

“Eh, Henry doesn't care about that. If kidnapping your siblings would make you pay faster just so you could get him off your back, he'd go through with something like that. He doesn't care what kind of expenses you rack up paying for security, investigation, or even a psychotherapist intervention.”

Ed snorted. The man was twisted, no doubt about that.

“And how about Ling?” Winry asked.

“I sent him home. He's packing to leave for Xing tonight,” Yuna answered. “Look, if it were just up to him, he would never leave you guys. He'd never abandon his friends. That's not the kind of person he is, and that's not how I raised him. But I was the one who insisted that he goes. He's behind the entire operation after all, so his father's wrath would fall heaviest on him.”

“Yeah, fine. I understand,” Ed said, rubbing his face. Truth be told, he wasn't sure if taking the nobler path was the best choice either. That said, there were people that Ed cared too much about to leave behind. And there wasn't anywhere he could go _to_ that could help him more than staying here in Amestris. He wasn't like Ling. Edward's best resources were himself, as well as his friends.

“I know it probably doesn't really matter at this point, but my son would definitely feel much better if he knew that his friends would be okay,” Yuna continued.

Edward gave his cheekiest grin to the Yao woman. “C'mon, haven't you realized by now that I can take care of things regardless of whether your son is here or not? Trust me, we only needed him for comic relief!”

Yuna smiled, not insulted in the slightest. “I hope what you're saying is true. Look, I can lend you some money to offset the burden from Auto-Mail's treasury. It's best if you give Henry Chu what he wants now, before he gives you any more trouble.”

Pandering to the Xingese man's childish, violent tantrums was the last thing Edward wanted to do. It was exactly what Chu needed to prove his power, that even the most prevalent black market in the country could do nothing but succumb to his whims.

But if that was what they needed to do to buy themselves more time, he would take it.

“I told him to find Lan Fan there,” Yuna stated, and then proceeded to explain what Office Falman had told her and Ling just earlier that day about their deportation. Ed turned to Winry to gauge her expression. From her sigh, he could tell she was slightly relieved. In a way, he knew how she felt. If Lan Fan wasn't the traitor, it meant that he and Win didn't foul up bringing her into the group. “If you send your correspondence to my father, you can still keep contact with Ling. In the meantime, you can focus your energy into finding the lost two million sens, and keep as many people safe as possible. As for me, I'll do my best to distract my ex-husband as much as I can. There are some failing Drachman businesses I can probably exploit..”

Yuna continued to babble about businesses and finances and stupid people not thinking with their heads.

“Ed,” Winry whispered. “Not to taint a dead man's soul or anything, but I've been thinking. I'm pretty sure that Manos took the two million sens that we are missing.”

“Huh?”

“He's the one who spilled the beans on us! If there's anyone who would go as far as pilfer our money, it would be him. Or at least, someone he's acquainted with.”

Ed frowned. “Well that sucks. Now he's gone, and we don't have a lead.”

“But think about it. If you were a thief, where would you keep a stash of bucks?”

He shrugged, “I'm not a thief, so how would I know?”

“Exactly! But you know who's a thief?”

Slowly, he realized where Winry was taking this speculation. Heh, he knew that that Paninya girl had to be useful for something sooner or later.

-o-

A week after the commotion, Riza found herself with an early end to her shift. As she was packing up, the Colonel weasled his way past her without a word, and though she didn't notice his hand slip into her pocket, she definitely felt the added weight of the object he dropped in it. When she was through the door, she pulled out the object and found that it was a key.

She smiled. Trust the Colonel to get things done.

Once she was at her apartment, she called Alphonse, Mei and Winry to ask them if they could meet her at the train station the next day.

The key that the Colonel gave her opened the room to a special laboratory in Central City, one where the Red Stone project was conducted years ago. Now that Colonel Mustang revealed the price they had paid for their triumph over Bradley during the uprising, it was about time to swallow their pride and look back at one of the most disgraceful decisions they ever made as a team.

When they arrived at the laboratory the next day, Riza led the three of them to a filing cabinet where all the documents regarding the research were stored.

“These have been untouched since the project was put to rest when the uprising occurred,” Riza explained, as Alphonse and Mei excitedly extracted the documents from the cabinet. “Most of the doctors who worked on this endeavour had long since dispersed. Or died. We've questioned a few of them after Grumman became President, but they refused to come back, noting lost of interest, or even doubt that they could actually succeed in creating the medicine as it was first envisioned.”

Riza turned to the youths, and found Winry hovering behind Alphonse's seat, reverently fingering the sheets of the research papers. For her, Riza thought, this was more than a matter of 'magical' potion. It was her parents' legacy, a testament to their hardwork and their noble intentions.

From inside one of the folders, they retrieved a disc that introduces the concept of the Red Stone, and they placed it in one of the many computers lined up against the wall. The disc was filled with the digital versions of the documents, some videos, several computer programs, and a directory of spreadsheets, among other things.

“I don't know much about all this scientific jargon, so you kids go ahead and read,” Riza told them.

“Is there anything specific you want to find out?” Alphonse asked gently. “If not, I can't assure you that we won't just happily go along, obsessing about every single amazing detail!”

Riza nodded. “One of the biggest things we're curious about is how to make the Red Stone. We believe that if we figure this out, we can manage to compete with Henry Chu in its distribution. It will be one less thing he controls.”

“Well, here's something off the bat,” Mei piped up excitedly, pointing to the screen of the computer. “There's a brief introduction at the beginning, talking about the objective of the research project. The medicine is made up of synthetic cells that apply an advanced algorithm to learn anomalies in a person's body and eliminate them. Look here, Al!” she exclaimed excitedly. “They've sited that the algorithm was based off of Hohenheim's Method. Your father seems to have contributed to the project indirectly as well!”

Alphonse rushed over to look at the screen, grinning. “Heh, I'll make sure not to tell brother. He'll have an apoplectic fit if he realizes that Dad's work was actually of some use.”

“What do you mean, Al?” Winry interjected. “Is Ed still sulking about your father?”

“Eh... I guess my brother would just prefer to believe that our Dad was a good-for-nothing idiot. After all, a hero leaving his home to save the world wasn't exactly the kind of picture our Dad painted for himself.”

“In any case, back to the topic!” Mei clapped her hands. “In order to know how to make it, we have to know exactly what it does. It says here that there are two main objectives: for wounds and other physical injuries, the antidote must be able to heal its host. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the host will become immune to similar damages in the future. This means that after the medicine cures a cut, the host will still be able get a cut again.

“On the other hand, the medicine must be able to _both_ cure and provide increased immunity against diseases caused by pathogens.

“Those are the basic goals that the Red Stone must be able to accomplish before the doctors would consider their product a success.” Mei finished, looking up at the others to see what they thought.

“Hey, look here!” Alphonse picked up a print-out from the documents they gathered from the cabinet. It was a diagram of the artificial cell, labeled and completely annotated in a messy handwriting. “This is the learning cell they're talking about! They outlined all the major components and what they're made out of. I'm sure it would be easy to replicate it, if we're able to find the right ingredients.”

“But that diagram only shows the physical aspects of the cell,” Mei said. “It doesn't tell us how to make the cell perform its most basic function. Here it says,” she continued to read from the computer. “The biggest obstacle is how to make the cells learn. To learn, the cells need data. In particular, they need points of comparison. One point of reference must be the healthy version of the host, and the other point is the degraded version. The cells' job is to learn how it got from one point to the other, and reverse the process.”

She paused, looking very serious. Alphonse observed her for a moment, then nodded his head as if she had just said something he agreed with.

“That's a very simplistic scenario, and not realistic at all,” he told the rest of them. “If that's what the cells need, then the medicine would almost never work. Because first it needs to know what the healthy version of the host is like, but most people would never need to administer a medicine until they're already sick!”

Riza sighed. It seemed to her as if so may things could go wrong. Wouldn't doctors then have to personalize the medicine then, since each person was different? And how did the medicine know what exactly was 'wrong' with a person? If someone had a cold at the same time they broke their ankle, which one would the Red Stone target?

Hm, perhaps this was why the doctors gave up after one prototype. And from what she had heard, the prototype couldn't exactly heal anything yet. It was just a base.

She allowed the kids to continue their reading quietly. She didn't want to impose, but at the same time, she was the only one here who was authorized to access the room, so she couldn't leave – and even then, she didn't have _complete_ authorization, which was why the Colonel had to pass the key to her in hiding.

At midday, Alphonse and Mei took a break to get some lunch and came back with bento boxes for all four of them. After eating, they continued to read.

“Alright, so it is tough business,” Alphonse admitted. “There's just too many ways the process can go wrong. The cells can 'overlearn,' meaning that they think that the old health of the host is the perfect version of the host, so it will try to revert the body to that state. This will interfere with natural aging and healing process, especially when the Red Stone is administered for long-term use against a disease.

“On the other side of the spectrum,” he continued. “The cells can also 'underlearn,' meaning that the cells are not effective, because they can't tell the healthy version of the body from the damaged version. What the cells need is a balanced rigour for learning, one that will allow them to grow along with the body's natural progression, and at the same time, know when the body needs fixing.”

“So what exactly is the prototype that they made? What did it do?” Riza asked.

Alphonse grabbed the binder from where he took the picture of the synthetic cell, and browsed through the last few pages. His brow furrowed in concentration, although as the minutes ticked by and he continued to read, it morphed into something akin confusion.

“What's wrong, Al?” Mei pushed herself off the chair in front of the computer and joined Al, looking over his arm to see what he was reading.

“Lieutenant, are you sure that the research was postponed because of the civil war?” he asked.

Riza perked up. “As far as I know, yes. Though to be totally honest with you, I only ever knew the basics of the project. I was never in the inner-circle. That was mostly composed of doctors and researchers, you see. The government was only funding it, and my faction of the military then was only told to protect the team if needed.”

“Well it seems to imply here in the end notes that the research team was in a deadlock even before the uprising occurred,” he explained. “They managed to build a prototype of the Red Stone, and imbue it with a superficial sense of what makes up a healthy constitution, which was learned from the collective, averaged data of the researchers' own healths. But after that, it seems as if the researchers themselves had a falling out.”

Riza tapped her fingers on the desk, trying to make sense of what Alphonse was telling them.

“Could it be that their political views were already driving them apart? That some of the doctors and researchers were supportive of President Bradley, after all?” Mei tried to suggest.

Riza shook her head. “No, we tried keep this project from really penetrating Bradley's radar, which was why it was launched under the Aerugan War Act. Anything that would support our men in battle, he favoured, so we managed to sneak it in disguised. I'm certain that none of the researchers and doctors who participated supported Bradley at all. They were all handpicked by my grandfather himself.”

Winry pulled a sheet from the pile she was looking at, and pointed. “Here's a resignation note I found from one of the doctors. She wrote that she was leaving because she was afraid that if she continued, she would be violating her oath as a doctor.”

Mei suddenly gasped, and they all looked at her wide-eyed expression, gaze unseeing as some kind of horrible realization hit her. When she snapped out of it, she snatched the notes out of Al's hands.

“Don't you guys get it yet? Look what it says here. The doctors _averaged their own healths_ and ingrained that info into the cells. They used data from their own bodies! Now think about it. If the doctors wanted to test their algorithm, they would have needed an _un_ healthy version of themselves.”

Riza began to see where the young girl was going with this. Mei looked at them each one of them in return, a mix of disgust and fear shading her eyes.

“For something as precise as this, the only way to train the cells properly is to experiment on people. In their case, they would have needed to test the medicine on themselves. _That's_ why they had a falling out.”

-o-

When her grandfather Fu had been healthy years ago and he would let her accompany him on a simple bodyguarding job, they had developed an easy series of gestures to communicate their next actions without notifying others around them. Rubbing the back of the neck meant that they were coming close to the end of their session, so they should try to wrap things up with their clients; a hand through the hair meant that one of them sensed danger; a quick swat of the hand, like someone ridding the air of a fly, meant go away, leave, escape.

It was the same sign he's been giving her now, for the past three mornings, when she tried to clean him up.

But Lan Fan couldn't leave.

It wasn't that she wasn't confident she could make the slip. Sure, a few people inside the house and several more outside could hardly stop her if she truly wanted to leave. This wasn't the tightest, toughest neck-breaking situation she'd gotten herself in. And if she was to be completely honest, she had already devised four different ways in which she could slip unnoticed until she made it to the bottom of the stairs outside of the door. By that time, she would have all the space she needed to take care of her pursuers.

But all of that entailed leaving her grandfather behind.

And she couldn't do it.

Maybe she just wasn't enough of a warrior to leave behind what most in that profession would consider dead weight. Perhaps, despite her grandfather teaching her all he knew about martial arts and instilling in her the principles of a disciplined fighter, she would never truly be like those Xingese elite warriors. And maybe she didn't want to be. After all, when they fled from Tong Hua, her grandfather could have easily left her behind after her parents' death. He didn't need to carry a weak, crying two-year-old across the continent, didn't need to worry about feeding and housing a toddler, when already he was stretched to the limits trying to make a living in a new country by himself. Her grandfather didn't abandon her, even though the warrior's code would have frowned upon it. She couldn't abandon her grandfather either.

She was way too sentimental for a fighter, she had always known that.

Lan Fan filled a large basin with water from the pump in the bathroom, and dumped her grandfather's sweat-soaked clothes. Mámù had gotten them some change of clothes, nothing fancy – more like peasant garb than anything else, but if it meant improving their sanitation, Lan Fan wasn't going to complain.

When her grandfather had harshly whispered into her ear that it would be best for her to escape and save herself, one of the big men cuffed her on the head, unexpectedly. “No, low talking.” Apparently that was a new rule. Another was “No talking in Tong Huan dialect.” Basically, they didn't want Lan Fan and Fu conspiring.

It didn't matter. To Lan Fan, there was no difference in her ability to save herself whether she performed her escape now or after her grandfather was dead. And if her grandfather really was dying, she'd rather just stay and be with him a little bit more. Stay until his last day.

A drop of tear disturbed the surface of the water in the basin, and Lan Fan scrubbed her face with her forearm. There was no point in mourning someone who was still alive. No matter how close to death they were.

After she finished washing her grandfather's clothes, and hung them on a makeshift clothes line she'd installed across the walls of the bathroom, she went outside to begin cooking their midday meal. There really wasn't much to cook. Yesterday a new batch of food came, but they weren't any more interesting than the first bag. If anything, Lan Fan would be hard pressed to find all the nutrition her grandfather needed.

Her heart clenched. This morning, he didn't even bother waking for long enough to eat breakfast. Somehow, she thought, it was now harder to wake him than to feed him. Putting away the morbid thoughts from her head, she began to select what she could turn into lunch from the poor array of vegetables she'd been given.

Just then, a loud knock reverberated through the tiny house, surprising most of its occupants.

Lan Fan looked at Mámù, who looked back at her with an arched eyebrow. The woman then turned to look at her peers, an accusatory glint to her gaze. But the four men and women who were in the house, shook their heads vigorously as if to say that they didn't have anything to do with why there was someone knocking on the door.

“Where the hell is Shin?” Mámù growled. “I told him to warn us if anyone was approaching.”

Lan Fan knew the implication of that almost immediately. She stilled herself, and tried to sense where the other four guards were. They usually didn't go very far. There were those two – Lan Fan presumed they were a couple – who always smoked by the side of the house; she observed those inside, and thought about the ones that had had to be guarding their home from the outside. There was the small, bald man whose name she didn't bother to remember, and the pockmarked woman who couldn't be any older than Lan Fan herself.

She couldn't sense them.

What she did sense, however, was a rather large group of people hovering by their front door.

Mámù stood up and opened the door. Lan Fan took a step back from the table to see over her shoulder.

There was an elderly man on the other side, flanked by some sort of special escorts with hair neatly tied up in top-knots, all wearing a deep red uniform and porcelain half-masks. Lan Fan thought those went out of style fifty years ago, but perhaps not everyone in Xing felt the same way.

“Good day, my lady!” the old man announced cheerfully. Something nagged Lan Fan about the intonation of that voice, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. “Would you kindly let me in? I have some matters I'd like to settle with you.”

“Sorry, but you must have gotten the wrong address,” Mámù said sternly. “I, for one, don't remember anything that has to do with you, so if you'd go your merry way without further incidents, it would be best for all of us.”

She tried to shut the door, but the old man imposed himself in its way.

“On the contrary,” he said in a jolly voice. “I think I got the address just right.”

“Who are you?” Mámù said, planting herself squarely in the doorway. Some of the others began to shift their positions to better guard themselves from trouble, blocking Lan Fan's view of the outside. She cursed, but stayed focused on the conversation.

“You could say I'm a local governor from a nearby jurisdiction. I have a couple of issues to deal with among your lot.”

“My lot?” Mámù scoffed. “You uptown dandies really think you're all that, don't you? Banging on people's doors as if you have a right to. It's true we're just squatters, but we're not bothering anyone else!”

Eh, squatters? That was the cover Chu assigned them? Lan Fan clicked her tongue. She found it rather comical too that nobody could have picked a better place where they wouldn't be disturbed. It seemed a little slapdash, considering that Chu was behind the entire thing. She didn't remember him to be that careless.

One of Mámù's friends began yelling, and Lan Fan tried to see what was going on, but her view was still obstructed. After a moment, the old man pushed through those blocking his way, but stopped short when he noticed Lan Fan. One of Lan Fan's guards, the one who had taunted her during her first night there, grabbed him from behind, but a masked escort quickly dispatched of him, sending him hurling across the floor. More masked guards began spilling into the house, engaging her captors in a troublesome fight. The old man himself was busy trying to subdue Mámù, who turned out to be rather competent in combat as well.

Lan Fan braced herself. However, none of the guests seemed to be interested in trying to get to her. As a matter of fact, they even seemed to be trying to prevent Mámù and her crew from going back to Lan Fan and keeping her subdued during the mess.

A swift, lean escort pushed through the crowd, taking the kick that Mámù sent for the governor. But the escort didn't so much as cringe; he closed his hand around her ankle, and yanked it forward, causing Mámù to lose her balance and trip over someone else who had already fallen. Disregarding the woman, the escort turned back around, blocking the attacks that were meant for the older man. His actions were fluid and precise, but then again, so were his companions'. Lan Fan became certain right then and there that the governor had been expecting trouble.

Lan Fan shook her head, knocking herself out from her fascinated stupor. If there was any opportunity she would get to escape, this was probably it. By herself, she could make it out even without those strangers. But with their distraction, she actually had a chance of taking her grandfather with her.

Quickly, she grabbed the stash of food that she'd been given for the week. She rolled up their extra clothes and the blanket that was covering her grandfather. Neglecting all gentleness – her grandfather was unconscious anyway, not merely sleeping – she slung his emaciated body across her back. She didn't sense the others outside who were supposed to have been guarding their house, and knowing that Shin had failed to report the arrival of the strangers, Lan Fan supposed that the perimeter was clear of anyone who would try to stop her. She pushed her load through the windows. Then one last time, she looked back to assess the situation.

And stopped.

The ground was littered with her guards' bodies. All knocked-out or... dead. The floor she worked so hard to scrub for her grandfather's sake was peppered with thick blood stains, though she wasn't sure whose they were.

Standing expectantly near the door was the old governor and his host of bodyguards, all staring at her.

“Look,” Lan Fan began, shifting her grandfather's weight on her back. “I'm not with those people. Believe me. If you let me go, I promise I won't bring you any trouble at all. I just want to take my grandfather to a doctor.”

“Well, I'm sure you won't be any trouble at all, but I'm afraid that I can't let you go,” the old man said, and Lan Fan's face darkened. Had she gotten caught up in something completely unrelated to her? She didn't even know the kind of things the Xingese locals dealt with on a daily basis. What if this was a syndicate or something? “I'm looking for my granddaughter.”

Lan Fan shook her head. “I'm not from this area. I came here only a week ago. I don't know her or where she is.”

“Ah, but on the contrary, I believe you do!” he continued cryptically. “Is your name Lan Fan, by any chance?”

That caught her by surprise, and her heart thudded with anxiety. What had she gotten herself involved in? The old man walked up to her, but he didn't seem threatening.

“Depends on who is asking,” Lan Fan answered.

“That's too bad, because if you happened to be Lan Fan, then my search would be over.”

It took a moment for what he said to completely sink in and for Lan Fan to understand what it implied. She couldn't help the little laugh that came out of her mouth.

“I'm not your granddaughter! You are mistaken, sir.”

He smiled at her kindly, but mischievously. “Am I? Are you sure?”

Lan Fan couldn't control her laugh anymore. This was a very funny way to punctuate the rush of adrenaline that came when the fighting began.

“I don't mean to be rude, but how could it be? I only have one grandfather left, and if you don't step aside and let me find a doctor, he'd be joining my only _other_ grandfather in the ground.”

“How could it be?” The old man repeated her question. From a pocket in his suit, he pulled out an envelope, from which he unfolded a piece of fancy paper. He laid it on the table, stretching it out with wrinkly fingers for her to be able to inspect its contents.

Her heart almost stopped. It was a certificate.

“By marriage with my grandson, of course!” he continued happily.

Just then, one of the guards stepped up beside the governor. She recognized him as the one who had guarded the old man the entire fight. He removed his mask.

“Hello again, Lan Fan,” Ling said.

Lan Fan almost fainted.

-o-

'Governor.' Well, Lan Fan supposed it was true. Though the more complete title for introductions would have been the Governing Minister of the Yao province. And 'nearby jurisdiction' her butt! The Yao province was a three hour car-ride away, the midst of which she was in at the moment.

The elderly Yao had been kind enough to request for a speedy ambulance to take her grandfather directly to the best, highly-reputed hospital closest to their compounds in the Yao province. Lan Fan sat in the ambulance, wringing her hands.

“What is your grandfather's illness, if you don't mind my asking,” Governor Yao said. He accompanied Lan Fan and her grandfather in the vehicle. Ling, however, opted to head straight for his home and wait for her there. He'd been serious and distant since their meeting, but he wasn't unkind when he told her that they would be providing medical care for Fu for as long as he needed. Xing, after all, was a hotbed for medical advancements, even moreso than Amestris.

“I'm not sure,” Lan Fan answered truthfully. “I wouldn't be surprised if he's sick from many things.”

He whistled, but didn't say anything after that.

“Sir,” Lan Fan began after a while. “That marriage certificate...”

The old man shrugged. “My grandson brought it with him when he came to me several days ago. I don't know the particulars. You'd have to ask him about that. Though by your shock... I'm guessing he married you in absentia.”

Lan Fan sighed and rubbed her head. She could already feel a headache coming on.

“Don't worry too much. If that really is the case, it's most likely–” he lowered his voice and gave her a wink. “ _Fake_. Don't go saying that out loud though. If Ling obtained a certificate for it, he must have a reason to make it look like you're officially hitched.”

She leaned her head back against the wall of the truck, allowing the cool metal to permeate her heated mind. Here she was wondering if Ling would ever want to see her again, and the next thing she knew she was married to the guy. She tentatively picked up the certificate, unfolding it.

_Lan Fan Yao_ .

She traced the lettering with a finger. She had been so many Lan Fans throughout her life. Lan Fan Tseng, a small, dreamy shadow she barely remembered or recognized; Lan Fan Zhang, sixteen years of uncertainty, of trying to walk on both sides of the fence at the same time; and now, Lan Fan Yao. What kind of life would this name bear for her? When would she get a name that sat comfortably on her shoulders, one with which she can face the world and feel it's okay to actually  _be_ herself?

She folded the certificate in quarters and tucked it securely in her pocket.

They arrived at the hospital an hour later, where her grandfather was rushed to the emergency rooms. Governor Yao and one remaining escort from the fiasco earlier, a quiet man in his prime, stayed with her. Lan Fan felt uncomfortable that someone so prominent would dilly-dally about with a young girl when she was sure that there were a lot of other things he could be doing. Governor things. Then she wondered whether Ling put his grandfather up to this, to make sure that she didn't just bolt.

Not that she could go anywhere. But hey, it wasn't like she could ask Ling to just trust her point blank.

When Fu was transferred to a nice, comfortable recuperating room, it was already dusk. The escort led them to the parking lot where a sleek, expensive car was waiting for them. When Lan Fan sat inside, Governer Yao handed her a paper bag of some take-out food.

“I'll be an embarrassing host for tonight and cut corners when it comes to dinner,” he told her. “But tomorrow I promise you will get a taste of the infamous Yao cuisine that fuels my peoples' appetite!”

Lan Fan smiled, looking at the large combo packed in her styrofoam. She didn't care much for any luxurious food, since this already seemed like a feast compared to any meals she'd had since she stayed at Ling's home in Amestris. The escort reminded her not to eat too quickly, but she still managed to finish it by the time the car rolled into a paved driveway in front of a very large estate.

If Lan Fan had thought that Ling's house in Dublin was comparable to a mansion, well then his house here was like a palace. It wasn't just a single house. It was a compound made up of four to five large crawling structures and some smaller dwellings, all scattered in the midst of a beautiful, traditional garden sporting a lake to one side, and a pavilion in the center. And that was only what was visible from Lan Fan's vantage by the driveway.

“Come along,” Governor Yao waved to her, as he started up the steps that led into the garden. Lan Fan openly marveled at the sight around her, eyes lingering on the different plants that bore no more blooms due to the season, but were still arranged aesthetically around the space. The buildings were a mix of traditional and contemporary architecture, which was both jarring and fascinating at the same time. The Governor turned and entered the doorway of the largest house.

Instantly, they were welcomed by servants. A thin, pale man came hurrying towards them, acknowledging Lan Fan only with a nod, before turning to the governor.

“The Comptroller of the Housing Committee has called for a brief meeting, sir!” he said. “They are tuned in at the conference room right now.”

“Ah, I guess I must take my leave here, young lady!” Governor Yao said to her. “This kind woman here will show you to your rooms.” Before she knew it, Lan Fan was left alone standing by the door with a female servant waiting patiently for her.

“Uh...”

The servant smiled awkwardly, before pointing to the left. “This way, Missus.”

_Missus!_ Did everyone already know she was married to Ling Yao?

The woman led her through a series of posh hallways, and ended at a dimly lit section decorated with paintings and figurines of peacocks. The servant pointed to a sliding door. “Here you go,” she said deferentially. She nodded at Lan Fan, then turned around and left as well.

Lan Fan fingered the wooden panels of the door, its smooth, rich texture a testament to the grandeur of the Yao name. She slid it open, then stopped short.

Ling was on the other side.

Lan Fan paused, momentarily wondered if the servant had made a mistake, but realized that she was supposed to be married, and then blushed at the thought of having to share a room with Ling in this large, opulent place.

Ling stood up, and of all the things that she could have thought about, she noticed his well-fitting suit and how it made him seem so princely surrounded by all the luxurious furniture in the room. But then again, he was  _technically_ a prince.

“Don't worry,” he said, voice low and smooth, devoid of the humour she'd gotten to know him for. He moved to the far side of the room, and pulled open another sliding door. “Here are your apartments. Unfortunately there's no access to it than through my own, but I'm sure it will do.”

She nodded, but couldn't find it in herself to move or say anything. He stared back at her, expression guarded, yet expectant. She knew that this was probably the time to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to explain her actions that night, and maybe even to ask what happened after she had left, to ask about the marriage certificate. But she couldn't formulate the right words to begin whatever it was that she felt he was expecting from her. Her mind whirled with feelings and memories all fighting for the sound that would come out of her mouth.

Only one of them won. “I will tell you everything.”

He relaxed visibly, relief evident in the way his shoulders released their rigidity and his eyes lost their hardness. “I wish you would. I really, really wish you would.”

Lan Fan inhaled deeply, and sat down on one of the small couches near the door.

“When I was young, my grandfather took odd jobs,” she began, wondering if this was too far into the past that it was barely relevant. But she promised him everything, and this felt as good a place to start as any. “He didn't make much. He doesn't have formal white-collar skills than can get him high-paying jobs, and he was afraid that if he pursued something a little more clean-cut, his fake papers wouldn't hold up.

“But then the civil war happened. A lot of people suffered, including us. We had to change homes many times. And it wasn't easy for illegal immigrants like us. Other people, you know, they had insurance and records and things that will help them recover. But for us, the only thing we ever owned are the things we could physically possess. But if there was anything Grandpa Fu knew, it was how to live in the midst of violence and desperation. Because the crime rates soared, people looked for ways to secure themselves. Grandpa offered his services as a bodyguard.

“We survived that way. Grandpa took me along to his jobs. He considered it part of my training. People were dubious of me, but I never got in the way, and sometimes I even helped. Soon, even as a young teenager, Grandpa would let me take up bodyguarding jobs too. I took offers from people who didn't want to be conspicuous, mostly for parents with young children.

“I guess you could say that it was around that time that I got a little dreamy. My head was in the clouds. You probably won't understand. But I saw all these people who owned so many things. Big houses, multiple cars, fancy clothes. Even people who weren't that rich at least had three meals a day. I thought to myself, 'Maybe I can get a big break. Maybe I would be so good at a job that someone would have to pay me so much money. Maybe Grandpa and I can get work insurance so that every time we got injured at a job, the fees wouldn't have to come out of our pockets.”

Lan Fan glanced up at Ling. He was sitting across from her, attentive and silent.

“Two years ago when I was sixteen, I caught my break,” she continued. “At least I thought I did. Your father solicited me personally. It wasn't like I didn't know who he was. Actually, it was because I knew who he was that I readily agreed. I never told Grandpa. I was being silly, you see. I thought I'd surprise him. Take a job for one night, come back the next day with bags of cash, and tell him that we can move to a better apartment. Or something.

“The job that Henry Chu asked me to do? Protect him during his trade with The Dealers' Guild.”

She sensed Ling stiffen at this confession. She closed her eyes, and tried not to imagine the look of betrayal he must have on his face. She was aware that all this time, he had thought she was an innocent bystander who had gotten caught up in the melee of his interception of the trade. And she never corrected his assumption. She didn't want to. To confess that she'd been working with Chu all along at that time? It would have had dire consequences on her employment with Ling.

Well... not that what happened this last week was anything short of dire anyway. Lan Fan knew she was an idiot.

“I had been there the entire time. When your friend robbed the Dealers' notebook, Chu began to withdraw his men. He was afraid. This trade would have been a very big success if it was completed properly, but it all depended on being a secure and isolated interaction. You were correct in your assumption that if you had exposed your father's connection to the underground drug dealers, the government would be less reluctant to protect him in order to save face. So you see why Chu was so paranoid about the robbery.”

“But my father's name was never in the notebook,” Ling interrupted quietly.

Lan Fan nodded. “It didn't matter though. He was on the scene. If your team managed to deliver that notebook successfully and the Dealers were captured, they would talk.” She regarded his expression as he realized what that meant. Lan Fan added, “So you were also right in assuming that your father was behind the Dealers' deaths.”

She paused for a moment before continuing. “We had driven away from the scene already, but Chu stopped the car, and retrieved a suitcase. He looked at me and a couple of his other bodyguards. He told us that the suitcase contained the five million sens that the Dealers Guild wanted in exchange for the notebook. He wanted us to find some of the dealers who ran after your friend, give them the money, and tell them to meet up with Chu later at a different meeting place with the notebook. In the meantime, we were to tell them that they should hide the money in their safehouse.

“We were so stupid! Really! Give the money away without the collateral? It was insane. But I didn't think then. I just saw the money that _I_ would make by sunrise if I completed my job and did everything I was told.” Sometimes, Lan Fan remembered the feeling of hope she felt that night. It was exhilarating. It didn't even matter to her that she was getting dirty money.

“It wasn't money in those suitcases, was it?” Ling asked.

Lan Fan shook her head, and avoided the urge to look at her missing left limb.

“We managed to track down several of the dealers who were pursuing your friend. We told them exactly what Chu said. I handed them the suitcase, and I think they believed us, because we believed ourselves. We thought we were saying the truth. When they checked to make sure however, the act of opening the suitcase triggered the bombs. I only managed to run a few seconds before they went off.”

To be honest, she didn't even remember what it had been like to be caught up in an explosion like that. All she remembered was the excruciating pain attacking her senses when she regained consciousness.

“Then you came,” Lan Fan said, her voice going a little soft. “I had no idea why you wanted to save me. I thought you were just a crazy guy who likes explosions or whatever, because anyone who saw that scene would have known that none of us lying on the ground had been up to any good anyway. I'm sure you remember what happened during the time we were together after that. At least I don't think I'd be able to forget it.”

“I helped you because I thought you weren't involved. I thought you were just someone who got affected by my actions and my decisions. I couldn't live with that,” Ling explained. Lan Fan nodded, afraid to ask one silly little question: if Ling would still have helped her had he known that she was with his father at the time. Most likely not. And she didn't want to acknowledge the sorrow that sprouted in her when she thought about it.

“That's why I told you I didn't blame you about what happened. I brought on those deaths. It was because of myself that I lost my arm. For you... I had nothing but gratitude.”

“Don't be so harsh on yourself,” Ling whispered, looking down at his hands. “If my team had executed our part better, maybe you wouldn't even have been asked to perform the double-crossing.”

They were quiet for a while, Lan Fan rehashing the memory in her head to see where the points of blame really lay.

“So...” Ling spoke up. “Why didn't you wait for me? I came by the hospital the next night where Hawkeye said she left you, but you weren't there anymore. You couldn't have been healed enough to have been let go.”

Lan Fan let out a shaky breath. She had never told this part of her life to anyone else, and she wasn't sure how she was going to go about it.

“I would have waited for you, but I didn't have a choice,” she said. “I was taken.”

“Taken?”

She nodded. “I didn't know how it happened, but when I came to, I wasn't in a hospital. Not exactly. I was in an infirmary room, with my grandfather sleeping on a bed next to me. We were locked in. My body was covered in cuts and bruises. At the time I thought that maybe the explosion got me worse than I initially thought, but I know now that those weren't all from the incident with the guild.

“A man came in. He was your brother, the one Grandpa killed on the night of the first hoax. He said we were lucky finds, and that his father changed his mind about wanting to kill me. I didn't understand what he meant, and I wasn't strong enough to fight him off. At that time, I hopped back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. But I remember waking up and feeling more pain, or different kinds of pain. More wounds, more bruises. Sometimes burns from different causes. Sometimes I was so ill I thought my head would fall off...”

“They were torturing you? Why?” Ling asked, and she looked up briefly, recoiling slightly at the sight of vitriol coming from his eyes.

“Not torture in the usual sense of the word,” Lan Fan shook her head. “I found out later, pieced together from information I was able to gather while I was awake, that they were experimenting.”

“Experimenting?” Ling asked, incredulous. “With what?”

She looked up at him then. “The Red Stone. They had substance of some kind that could learn how to fix injuries or illnesses. I don't know the specifics, but the doctors and scientists there were talking about how to train it, how to develop the medicine so that it can learn by itself. That's what they wanted – a medicine that could just tell exactly what was wrong with a person and fix it. Grandpa and I weren't the only ones there. There were others too. Other... guinea pigs, you could say.”

It was easy to talk about the medicine. It was harder to think about the time back then, the horror of waking up and finding new abrasions on her body, or even worse – when they had done it while she was still awake. It was harder to think about the way she felt then, hoping that the next cut or the next virus would just kill her off so that all of it could end.

“But then one day I woke up, and I felt better,” she said. The medicine was starting to improve; the scientists were making headway. She remembered the fascination as she watched Arthur Hwang give her a few drops of the liquid and then see her bruises disappear before her eyes. “The shallow cuts and the light wounds, those were the first ones to heal. The doctors had to make several iterations on the medicine to heal my left shoulder, but when they finally did, I wouldn't say it wasn't amazing.”

She unbuttoned the top of her shirt and slid one side to reveal her stump. “Look at how the skin is smooth.” She touched the place gently. “I have full sensation on this stump. I don't feel any discomfort when it's pressed or bumped, I don't even feel any ghost pain on it.” She replaced back the shirt over her shoulder, then resumed her story.

“These were the easy ones. The hard ones were the illnesses. It took weeks before someone was able to make the Red Stone heal a common cold. That was because the symptoms could be different for different people. I don't know how the Red Stone works, but I think that after it knows how to patch up flesh and skin and bone, it can replicate the process for anyone, you know? But if you have a runny nose and a headache, and someone else had dry cough and a sore throat, the Stone didn't know that they were caused by the same virus, not at that preliminary stage. The doctors worked very hard to address that, which meant I had a perpetual cold for weeks.

“The training process is complex and confusing. To be honest, I don't think the Red Stone could ever be truly efficient at anything other than physical wounds. That's just my guess. See, something strange started happening. The Stone was able to heal wounds on my grandfather, but it didn't do as well when it came to sicknesses. I was healed, I think, because I was young and strong, and my body's own defenses kicked in pretty efficiently and complemented the medicine.

“But Grandpa's old. When he was infected with a virus, he would heal momentarily after some doses of Red Stone. But then he got sick again. Not for the same reason though – the doctors checked, and the pathogens that were targeted really were gone. It was the same scenario for every kind of virus we were infected with. He'd heal from it, but then he'd get sick for some other reason. It was almost like he ping-ponged to the other side, like the Stone was doing too much, unable to find his stable state. Until eventually, he was just sick all the time, and only felt better while he was taking the Red Stone regularly.”

“How did you two manage to get out of there? Did my father eventually stop testing on you guys?” Ling asked.

Lan Fan snorted. “I wish he did. But you see, we never really got out. You must have realized that when I disappeared from the operation. I could never have severed all my ties from your father.

“One day, after I was just cured from another round of experiments, I lashed out. By that time, I knew everyone's schedule, their habits and patterns. I went directly after your father and tried to kill him. It was the perfect opportunity. If he died there, nobody would be able to point to me and say that a person they were experimenting on tried to kill their leader. Most of them didn't even want to be there, but were forced to be. I'd been so close. I had him down on the ground, hand on his throat. He was desperate. I could see it.

“But he had something that I didn't, and that I never would. He made me a bargain. Let him live, and he would supply me with as many Red Stones as I need for my grandfather. He knew that I could never heal him, that the only way for Grandpa to live now is to use the Red Stone as a crutch. If I killed him then, Grandpa would die also. But if I let him live, he'd see to it that the manufacturing of the Red Stone continues.

“That's not all. He also said that the moment I walk out of there, the militants would hunt me down. There were traces of me in the scene of the explosion, and I would be questioned, maybe even become a suspect. But if Chu is alive, he could pull some strings, and militants would leave me alone.”

Lan Fan shook her head and buried half her face in her only hand. She'd thought at that time that it didn't matter if Chu was alive. If she and her Grandpa could make it out and live their own lives, she would be content. But that wasn't how things played out either.

“When we left, I thought, finally! We could pick up the pieces again and start all over. Live a good life. And we did... for a few weeks only. After a month or so, Chu placed a hefty price on the Red Stone. He said he needed it to continue manufacturing. I had no choice but to pay. Every once in a while since then, he has increased the price. It drove Grandpa and I into poverty. We had never really done well before, and now we were even worse.” She closed her eyes in an attempt to quell the memories and the heaviness she felt, not towards Henry Chu, but towards herself. Imagine, if she hadn't been in over her head, none of that would have happened.

“What I don't understand is why you agreed to work for me,” Ling said softly, not accusatory. “If you knew how risky things would get. For you, especially. Not that you didn't resist... I mean, I know I sorta had to push you into it. But what changed your mind after you already refused?”

“Well, I was tired,” Lan Fan admitted. “I was exhausted living the way I was, always under his control. All he had to do was withdraw the Red Stone, tell me 'I need to get a job done,' and I would have to do it. It happened a couple of times, you know, when there were people he didn't like. I've avoided killing more people other than the Guild members, but there were other things to do. And I was never proud of it.

“If Chu was to go down without my knowledge, I would be in trouble. He is the only one who had access to the Red Stones, and he was the only who knew I needed it. Even if he was arrested, nobody in the government would care about a girl who needs medicine. But you offered me a way to be part of his downfall. I thought that maybe if I help orchestrate it, not only will I get rid of him, but I can also figure out how he's making the Red Stones and get some of it when he's gone. That's why I agreed to be part of your team.”

Ling nodded, then said lamely. “Heh, I knew it wasn't because of my sharp wits and good looks.”

Something about the way he said it, lighthearted and soft in the face of the morbid mood, made Lan Fan buckle under the weight of the guilt.

“I'm sorry, Ling,” she managed to say. She couldn't even look at him in the eyes anymore, and for some reason that made her feel even worse. There was an ache at the back of her throat, and she tried to squeeze the rest of her apology out, before she just cracked. “I'm really sorry. Please...”

Maybe revisiting all those horrible things she'd been through – the two heavy years of worry and loneliness and anger – in a span of only a few minutes caused her strength to deflate. She felt uncontrollable as she cried, relieved and embarrassed at the same time, because somehow, it felt good that the secret was out where she didn't have to carry the burden all by herself. But she wasn't sure she had the right to ask anyone to help her carry it in the first place. She told herself to stop crying, but her body wouldn't listen, and she became more frustrated, then just cried even more because of it.

Then she felt – and perhaps a part of her had _hoped_ all along – a pair of arms wrap around her, and she smelled Ling's scent as he held her head on his shoulder, one hand rubbing her back.

“I'm sorry too, Lan Fan,” he whispered. He sniffed, and she realized that he was crying too. She found herself circling her arm around him, and for the first time in a long time, she gave herself the permission to be comforted.

-o-

When Ling woke the next morning, his eyes were slightly puffy. The blankets around him were soft, much too soft than he was accustomed to, and then remembered that he wasn't home. He was in Xing, at his grandfather's house.

He shot out of bed, pushing the voluminous covers aside and rushed to the other side of his room. Softly, he slid the door open. He saw Lan Fan sleeping soundly on the futon. He exhaled. He closed the door to her room, and headed to the main quarters for breakfast. His grandfather Shàngwǔ, was already there, and when he looked up from his plate, he gave Ling a look of mock horror.

“You _cried_? Your wedding night was that bad?” the old man clicked his tongue. “I knew there would be consequences of you growing up outside of our province! Hay! We Yao men, we make sure there are no tears during consummation! Why, it's our tradition!”

“Grandfather, please!” Ling retorted, wondering why everyone in his mother's family had to be such painful jokers. _He_ wasn't this bad, was he? “It's not like that.”

“Then what was it like?”

“We just talked, really.”

“Oh.” His grandfather nodded solemnly. “Then I understand why you cried.”

“Grandpa, I'm serious here!”

“Alright, alright,” Shàngwǔ pushed aside his plate, and took a sip of his tea. “I'm just teasing, you know. Joking aside, what happened to the girl? Is she okay? Do I have to take care of law suits or anything of the sort?”

“No,” Ling said. “We'll lay low for a while.” He piled his plate with some warm rice cakes and fruits. “Has any of Chu's underlings talked yet?” He and his grandfather's men had taken those who survived the previous day's squabble and locked them up for interrogation.

“One of the women answered a couple of questions, but she won't reveal details. The rest are dead tongues.”

Ling took a bite from his breakfast before asking, “Will you be busy today? I think that Lan Fan and I should sit down with you and... try to figure out what's going on around here.”

“What kind of crap hole you got yourself into, you mean?”

“Yes, exactly that.”

“We can talk after lunch. I have a lunch date with the artisan's guild, and then a formal event with the city councilors at 3. In between, we can meet.”

Shàngwǔ left shortly after that, and Ling waited patiently for Lan Fan to wake and have breakfast. She came half-an-hour later, looking much refreshed but a little lost. When she noticed him sitting on the table, she gave him a small smile and noted how large the place was.

“It sure is,” Ling agreed. “The first time I visited here when I was five, my mother gave me a map and told me there was buried treasure somewhere in the compound. Of course, there wasn't. She just wanted me occupied.”

Lan Fan sat down and tentatively picked a modest-sized breakfast from the selection. Ling let her have her fill, while he sipped on his tea.

Almost shyly, Lan Fan turned to him, and pulled something from her pocket.

“What is this about?” she asked, showing him the marriage certificate he'd asked Sheska to forge for him.

“Ah. Politics is still a little... 'us-vs-them' here in Xing. The 50 Families are still used to looking out for themselves. Having a Yao name allows you to invoke our protection wherever you go, something you wouldn't have if you openly admit you're from Tong Hua. The Tong Huanese have very little protection against other citizens of Xing since their emancipation. I would never have been able to just crash your doors open and take you away from Yan City if you weren't a Yao. I mean, I could, but it would be synonymous to kidnapping you from your kidnappers. This way, however, it's more like rescuing.

“Also, that certificate would allow you to cross the border back to Amestris. I was born there, so I'm a citizen. Marriage to me means that you'll be considered a naturalized citizen as well. You can now go back there if you need to.”

“Oh,” Lan Fan said. “I see. Heh, I knew it wasn't because of my sharp wits and good looks,” she echoed his words from last night. He paused for a moment, wondered if there was anything he'd said that offended her, but she just smiled. He laughed.

“I have to remind you though, it _is_ fake. It'll get you through simple inspections, but I doubt it would hold up under heavy scrutiny into your identity and past and documents.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Ling.”

“For what? The marriage or the fact that it's fake?” he smirked. “Yeah, I understand if you have your reservations. Never really got to say 'I do', did you?”

“I'm not even gonna answer that.”

When she finished her breakfast, he offered her a tour around the compound, showing her the nice rooms and special quirks in each building. Then they went outside to stroll about in the gardens. Ling related to her the events that transpired after she had disappeared; how chaotic everything was, from the money disappearing, to Hunter Manos's death, as well as the termination of Auto-Mail's 7-11 contract, and threats made against the LeCoultes and Ling himself. Lan Fan appeared shocked to hear everything.

“I shouldn't be surprised though,” she admitted as she leaned against the railing of a bridge that spanned a small, green koi pond. “When you mess around with Henry Chu, he doubles his efforts against you. I know that from experience.”

Ling stood beside her, and looked into the reflecting pool. He was truthfully, deeply horrified to learn what Lan Fan and her grandfather endured at the hands of his father. In some, odd way, it made him feel small. He looked silly pretending he was a hero, making little plans for his daydreams, when there were other people out there who truly knew what it was like to suffer and still tried to make the best of things. Lan Fan, in general, had that effect on him. He was awed. He realized he'd always been, since the beginning.

He took her hand, and was pleasantly surprised when she didn't extract herself from him.

“I meant what I said last night, Ling. I really am sorry. I couldn't have prevented Manos's betrayal, but I think if I had revealed right from the beginning what I knew, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation right now. I just added to all the confusion.”

“It's alright. I think it's safe to assume that my father was always one step ahead of us since the beginning.”

“Actually, I believe he's only _half_ a step ahead,” Lan Fan said. “When I confronted your father in Tobha, he told me that he figured out our plan only after Auto-Mail signed a contract for a loan with a value less than what Mustang borrowed. I don't think Chu suspects that Mustang and his team of militants are in league with us. He only thinks that Auto-Mail planned to use the government investigation as an opportunity to reveal his involvement.”

Hm, if that was the case, the Colonel and his peers were safe. That part of the plan at least was still intact.

“Was there anything else you learned?” he asked her.

She thought for a bit before answering. “Actually, Mámù told me something about Chu. She mentioned that he is against the free-trade agreement between Amestris and Xing, and he seems to be planning something to prevent that from happening.”

Ling frowned. “You think it's related to what he's doing right now with Auto-Mail?”

Lan Fan shrugged. “It could be. If we're getting in the way of whatever he's planning, then for sure he'll want us beaten back. We _are_ trying to destroy him and his company after all; he won't be in any position of power to stop an international movement if his business collapses.

“Here's what I don't understand,” she added. “Mámù mentioned something about Chu saving his clan. I... I think she views him sort of like a hero, however unlikely. Do you know what's up with that? What happened to the Chus? Why are they in trouble?”

“Saving his clan? Hah, if they need saving, I would think it's from him!” Ling joked.

“My thoughts exactly. Chu isn't a saint in anybody's eyes where we live. I am surprised that someone can see him in rose-tinted lenses.”

“From what I know, the Chu clan is small and relatively inconspicuous. They're at the outskirts of the country, a small peninsula in the Sunrise Sea. Other than that, I don't know much.”

They decided to ask Shàngwǔ later when they met up with him after lunch. Ling was almost embarrassed to admit this particular lack of insight when it came to his father's politics, but all his life, Ling viewed Chu as a business man first, anything else second. He knew some of the ways that Xingese politics affected and embittered his father, but as far as he knew, anything Chu did was for self-affirmation to make up for losing his chance at the throne. Ling never considered the angle that perhaps his father was still deeply embroiled in Xingese affairs.

“The Chu peoples... well, they are a sorry lot,” his grandfather began. “And by sorry, I mean you would feel sorry for them. The peninsula where the Chu resides is in the southern portion of Xing. The people in this peninsula resemble the people in the southern continent more in terms of traditions and culture and even language. When they were annexed into the Xingese empire, the rest of the empire disliked them. They were thought to be beneath the rest of the citizens of the country. They were of the lowest caste.

“The thing that saved them was the Emperor's establishment of the 50 Families. They were one of the official ones, so they too have to be taken care of. The Emperor cannot ignore them just because he doesn't like them. Otherwise, he would be breaking his word. The moment an Emperor fails to take care of a family, any other family can use it against him as proof of his lack of honour.

“So you can see why that has all changed since the Oblique Era. The leader of this nation is no longer bound by the rules of the old empire. Instead, the republic relies on popular opinion. As proud as we are that we are moving forward and modernizing ourselves, many Xingese sentiments still remain primal. For example, the only reason the Chus were initially despised was because of their southern animist religion. Nowadays, most of the Chu peoples don't even _have_ a religion, and yet, their name still leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.”

“Mámù mentioned that Ling's father is keeping the Chu municipality afloat,” Lan Fan said. “What did she mean by that, do you know?”

Shàngwǔ scratched his beard. “Well, in the old days, the Emperor's first duty is to support the equal survival of the families. The families represented the most basic pillars for the empire, see. These days, in strict political terms, there are no more 'families', even though we still retain the essence of that way of life. From the government's view, there's just one collective Xingese populace. So the leader is now concerned about what will help as many people as possible.

“I'm not saying that the old ways didn't have its fair share of problems – after all, some clans really were quite vicious, which the empire could have done without. But the old rules also prevented minorities and disadvantaged families from simply being wiped out of existence.

“The Chu village is now one of the poorest communities in the entire country. If what you say is true, then Chu must be supporting his village financially. Come to think of it, the peninsula sports a healthy growth of forests that lumber companies have been asking after for many years. Suddenly, they just stopped asking for it, and set their sights somewhere else. I wonder if Chu had anything to do with that.”

“Hmm, then perhaps they use the money that Chu gives to dig themselves out of trouble, or pacify their enemies,” Lan Fan suggested. “In any case, I still don't understand why Chu is so against the free trade.”

“When is the signing?” Shàngwǔ asked.

“Not for another month yet,” Ling answered.

Shàngwǔ whistled. “I don't think you two would enjoy your honeymoon very much then. You've only got a month to figure it all out and come up with a plan to stop your father's crazy scheme. Because trust me, he won't pit himself against both the Amestrian and Xingese governments unless he has something really, really big up his sleeves.”

Ling looked at Lan Fan, and sighed wearily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: So, there you go. Explanations everywhere. I hope this chapter didn't come across as a big info-dump, although I'm afraid it did. But I really did plan for Lan Fan to finally explain everything to Ling for two reasons: one, it's no longer strategic for me to hold her story back, and two, Ling and Lan Fan's relationship cannot go forward until she's explained herself. I really want to ramp up their relationship now – not rushing into something romantic, of course, but I just want them to get closer. I don't know if Ling forgave her too easily in this chapter, but at the same time, I feel like it would also be unfair of him to expect so much from Lan Fan, someone who's been through so much more than he had.
> 
> Anyway, I will be taking the rest of the month off in order to plan Part 3 of this fic, as well as to spend some time drawing. I've neglected my art-blog for long enough now. Also, Part 3 is the last part of the fic, so it's going to conclude everything. It would require tons of planning, especially since I'm thinking of finishing this off in only 5 more chapters.
> 
> Well, let me know what you guys think! If there's anything you'd like to see happen between Ling and Lan Fan, or anyone else for that matter, this is probably the time to let me know, so I can see how to fit it in the outline.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hey guys! Thanks for all of you who have reviewed recently to tell me that you're still interested in the story. I have no intention of giving it up, and I'm actually actively writing the rest of the chapters regardless of an update. I am trying to get an average number of 3 reviews per chapter on FF.net, which sort of puts an undue pressure on the latest chapters, seeing that I updated the story in its infancy consistently without waiting for reviews. Sorry about that; I should have been more consistent. But the reason for this goal is that I'm afraid that new people would not be interested in trying this story if they see that the review count is so low. I hope this is not the case, but I know that a lot of people use the review count as a basis to see if a fanfiction is worth trying. 
> 
> In any case, I am in the process of writing Chapter 12 as I'm writing this author's note, and my goal is to have the story finished by January of next year. As for upload rates, it will still depend on whether I get my 3:1 review-chapter ratio. You're all welcome to ask for advanced chapters though.

**Chapter 11**

“There is talk,” Ling began. “Among my relatives. They live in the other houses, and are pretty much privy to whatever happens here in the compound.”

“What kind of talk?” Lan Fan asked as she brushed her hand across the ceramic vases lining the hallway. They had just finished breakfast, and was about to spend their customary stroll in the gardens.

“Talk about us.” Ling gave her a sly sideways glance, a small smile playing on his lips. They exited the hallway, walking through the pavilion, and finally out into the fresh open space of the looming autumn. He saw the way Lan Fan stiffen, guessing that even after a few days, she still had not adjusted to the idea of their marriage. Well, to be completely honest, Ling hadn't either. The marriage certificate was the quickest way he could think to remedy Lan Fan's unfortunate predicament – what the marriage entailed, however, didn't hit him until he came to the Yao estate and announced his plans to his grandfather.

“What are they saying?”

“Oh... well, you know, the usual things about ignorant family members.” Ling shrugged and donned on a bored voice. “How dare I get married without inviting them? Didn't I know there were ceremonies to hold, traditions to observe, yadda yadda.”

Lan Fan cringed. “Sounds like I shouldn't look forward to meeting them.”

“Eh, that can't be helped. You will eventually. Grandfather is planning a formal feast by the week's end.”

“Another one? Didn't we just have a feast last night?” Apparently Shàngwǔ promised Lan Fan a nice dinner after they took her from Yan City. True to his word, the previous night saw the three of them dining on a rather elaborate set of courses.

“That's not a feast!” Ling exclaimed. “Not by Yao noble standards. I know you're not too comfortable seeing people splurge, but let Grandpa be a little indulgent. He doesn't do so very often, and mostly it concerns family members when he does.”

“What am I supposed to say to your relatives? That I'm originally from Tong-Hua and that you married me to undermine my deportation from Amestris?” Lan Fan asked.

“Well... I'd be a little hypocritical if I say that I know how to handle my extended family. But, just try to smile a lot, say please and thank you; that tends to pacify them. We'll say that we met some months ago, and tied the knot for mutual benefit. The latter they'll understand, considering how embroiled this family has been in politics for generations. I don't think they have forgotten how mother had married Henry Chu, so more likely than anything else, they'll just pat your hand and nod like they're in on the joke.” 

The two of them reached Lan Fan's favourite bridge, the one that spanned a deep green pond where she could watch koi fish slither in and out of view.

The question of what would happen afterwards after their marriage dissolved – which was inevitable due to it being fake in the first place – neither of them voiced out loud. It hung awkwardly in the air as Lan Fan looked into the water, and he stared up at the clouds in the sky.

An excited voice broke their silent reverie, and Ling looked to the side to find a group of children coming into the garden from the opposite entrance. They waved at him eagerly, giggling and pointing at Lan Fan, all the way to the bridge.

“Big Brother Ling!” one of them called out. Though most of the children here were his cousins, or children of his cousins, he still endured the epithet of Big Brother. Meh, better that than 'uncle'. “Whatcha doin'?”

“Not much, just hanging about,” he said, switching into standard Xingese. He reached out to ruffle the hair of the tallest among them, behind which all the other kids were standing, stealing shy looks at him and Lan Fan.

The boy, called by most of their relatives simply as Shang, grinned back at him. “Yeah, we heard you got married. Is she your wife?” he asked, pointing at Lan Fan.

“Yep. Why don't you be a polite little boy and introduce yourself, huh?”

Shang made a show of dusting off his clothes and clearing his throat. Standing straight as a ramrod, he turned to Lan Fan and stretched out his hand. “Hello, dear lady! My name is Shang, and if you ever want embarrassing stories about your husband, my father can tell you lots! He used to stay with Big Brother Ling and Aunty Yuna when he made business trips to Amestris.”

Ling rolled his eyes, and slapped Shang's hand away before Lan Fan could take it. “That's not polite, at all!”

One little girl, no more than five years of age, hopped towards Lan Fan to grab her empty left sleeve. “What's in here?” she asked with big innocent eyes, and the rest of the younger kids were drawn to her side out of curiosity.

“Len, you're not supposed to say something like that!” Shang scolded, and pulled his younger cousin out of the way.

“She has one arm,” one of the kids said in what was supposed to be a whisper, but was obviously loud enough to be heard by everyone on that bridge.

“She's pretty,” Len continued, squirming away from Shang's hold to grab onto Lan Fan's other sleeve. She latched onto her hand. “Hello, lady!”

Lan Fan gave an awkward greeting, looking very much like she didn't know how to handle a group of children who were clamoring for her attention.

“Yeah, she's pretty alright,” one of them mumbled. “I can't believe she settled for Brother Ling!”

“Hey, I _heard_ that!” Ling exclaimed.

“Do you know martial arts?” Shang interjected. “My grandmother wants to know. She says it's not good for bearing sons.”

“ _My_ grandmother says that knowing martial arts is good for bearing sons!” another kid argued. “Why, how else is she going to protect the baby from bandits?”

“What bandits?” came a confused cry.

“Well, I heard green tea was good for bearing sons!”

“Green tea is all the rave these days!” someone else complained. “It's supposed to be good for everything, like curing tummy aches and making rain fall for the farmers. Bah!”

“Alright, alright, that's enough, all of you!” Ling called out loudly. “First of all, it doesn't matter if she bears a son or a daughter, and second of all, none of you should even be thinking about _that_! Now, leave the questions for later. Lan Fan and I have something to do right now.” He extracted Lan Fan from the zealous group, and began to retreat to the other side of the bridge. He turned around once to yell, “I like green tea!” before watching the children disperse into whatever game they wanted to play. 

Beside him, Lan Fan exhaled slowly. “Man, I don't know how I'm going to hold up with your aunts and uncles at this rate. Talking with the kids was already intense.”

“Don't feel bad. Talking with kids is _always_ intense. And look on the bright side! They seem to be taken with you.”

Lan Fan chuckled. “At your expense, it seems.”

“Huh? You're not talking about the whole 'too pretty for me' thing, are you?” Ling shrugged. “My shifty eyes had always been a source of jokes around here when I visit. Don't worry, I'm used to it. Half of them have the same shape of eyes, so really, the joke is on them.”

They walked down a hallway for a while, but when Ling guided her into a part of the mansion she hadn't been in before, she quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Let's head into the library. What you said about my father yesterday really got me thinking. I don't know much about the Chu clan, and I'm hoping to remedy that.”

The library has always been one of Ling's favourite places in the Yao estate. As a kid, the brightly covered books and finely decorated old scrolls vied for his limited attention, just as much as the large expanse of land dedicated to the gardens did. But he'd always been a very curious child, and the library's little quirks only amplified that side of him.

He led Lan Fan to the history section. He grabbed a couple of books related to Imperial Xing and the 50 Families, and set them down on the table where he and Lan Fan could read.

“Has your grandfather told you anything interesting about the Chus?” he asked her.

Lan Fan shook her head, flipping to the index of one of the books to look up the Chu clan. “Not really. The only tidbit I know well enough is the part where King Xiao asked for help from the Tong-Huanese in exchange for our independence. He was able to defeat your father in the race to the throne by collaborating with many of the smaller clans.”

“What I'm more interested in is what Mámù told you,” Ling said. He'd known that the Chu were poorer than all the other average clans, but somehow he never thought to wonder how they managed to survive all these years. The fact that his father might be routing finances from his business in Amestris to his home clan came as rather surprising.

“What confuses me is why your father would be against the free-trade agreement. It seems like something that might actually be able to help his people, don't you think?” Lan Fan said.

Ling shrugged, flipping through some basic starters on cultural distinctions between the 50 families. There was nothing out of the ordinary, it seemed. In the early days of their annexation, the Chus were animists and retained the culture they shared with those from the islands of the southern continent. They assimilated soon enough. The peninsula on which they live is known for its lush forests, from which the Chu peoples gather dyes and herbs to sell for their living. There had been four emperors from the Chu clan, two of which died early in their reigns. More random facts littered the pages, and Ling wasn't sure which ones were important.

“Hey Lan Fan, this might be an answer to your question,” Ling replied, as he pushed the book towards her, a finger pointing to the paragraph he just read. “The Chu people sell natural dyes. That's their main source of living. Do you think that's what Mamu was referring to? It's possible that my father is worried that the synthetic dye industry from Amestris would all but wipe out the demand for his clan's supply. Still, that seems like a rather drastic conclusion. The Chu clan can still resort to other types of things to sell from the forest.”

“Hold on,” Lan Fan said, shifting closer. “Remember what your grandfather said yesterday? Companies have been vying for the forests in their peninsula. What would be the implication if the Chu cannot make a living from the forests anymore? I think... I think the forest would be up for grabs again.”

An insight dawned on Ling. “You might be right. After all, with the increased competition across the continent, those logging companies would prefer the forest by the peninsula where the trees are more accessible and closer to the ports.”

Lan Fan nodded slowly in agreement. “And the Xingese government would just encourage them to do so to be competitive. It might not even protect your father's clan from the resulting displacement...”

Ling leaned against the backrest of his chair, contemplating the validity of their assumptions. They seemed sound to him, though the speed with which they churned out their ideas worried him. “But these are all just conjectures,” he grumbled, pulling back the book and flipping through it lamely. “With so many things that can be affected by the new policy, I'm sure things are a lot more complex than that.”

“Could be,” Lan Fan shrugged. “But one thing makes sense. Mámù was afraid of something deeply disturbing happening to her clan, economically wise. Something bad enough that even Henry Chu doesn't feel confident that he can pull them out of the pickle jar with his finances alone. Otherwise, he wouldn't be so upset, right? So whatever it is he's planning to do, we can anticipate that it would be so dire that President Grumman would not want to sign the agreement.”

“Blackmail then?” Ling frowned. “I don't think there's dirt on Grumman.”

Lan Fan stilled. “How about war?”

Ling's eyes almost bulged. “Start a _war?!_ No, I don't think so. It would be bad for his business _and_ the Chu peoples. Nah, I doubt he'd do something like that.” Ling was sure of it. Quite.

-o-

Lan Fan fidgeted beneath the sumptuous covers of her low bed. A flash of lightning lit up her entire room for a split-second, then she found herself blinded for several moments when the dark consumed her room again. Several seconds later, thunder rumbled in the distance.

She pulled at the pillow beneath her head, placing it on the side so that she could put her arms and legs around it. She swore she'd been trying to catch the evasive lull of sleep for at least two hours now. It must be past midnight. She'd been so exhausted the previous nights that sleep was not at all difficult, but now that she's been well-rested, she was starting to realize that she became accustomed to the harsher sleeping conditions in her shabby prison-home in Yan city.

Her room here was scarily fancy. Too fancy. Everything was. Even now, the scent of jasmine lingered around her, emanating from the body wash that her bathroom had been stocked with.

Outside, she heard the rain begin to patter down, slowly at first, before escalating into a full-blown storm.

It reminded her of the times back in Amestris after she and Grandpa Fu had just escaped from Chu's laboratory. It had been one of the worst times of her life. They had no place to go, their old quarters having been rented out to someone else during their absence. Her grandfather was ill, and she was still feeling the after effects of many of the researchers' treatments. She had never felt so... lost and angry and despairing.

Just thinking about it sent the familiar ache shooting across her chest. She sat up, suddenly too warm beneath the blankets, her heart racing with fear and anxiety that she could lose everything again. The emotion came up now and again during her stay in Yan city, but it hadn't been so bad, because at least they had shelter and food to eat. And the hard work of keeping things in order took its toll on her so she didn't have a lot of spare energy left to worry about 'what-ifs'.

When things are good though... she became afraid.

A cold breeze entered from her window, and Lan Fan walked over to close the shutters. Turning back around, she found the image of her bed uninviting in its opulence. She sighed. Maybe some warm drink would help with her insomnia. She tiptoed to the sliding door that separated her room from Ling's, and quietly slid it enough to the side so that she could squeeze through.

She couldn't see Ling well enough in the dark. He was nothing but a shadowed outline among other shadowed outlines. The sound of his breathing was lost amidst the sheets of rainfall outside. Well, she hoped he was asleep.

Lan Fan skittered to the door on the opposite side of the room as quietly as she could. She was just about to open it, when she heard Ling call her name.

“Lan Fan?”

She paused. Looking back, she found Ling's dark shape pushing himself up on his elbows.

“Are you alright? Is anything the matter?”

Lan Fan looked to the door, contemplating on whether she should put up a charade of being thirsty. But Ling sounded genuinely concerned, and after all that she had put him through, she decided that she needed to be more honest with him. With her mind made up, she closed the door and walked slowly towards Ling's bed.

She crouched by the side, and looking at him, she felt somewhat better. And the sense of comfort she felt was concrete, tangible, not something that could easily be taken away in a span of a breath. And right now, that assurance was all she needed. It might all be an illusion – after all, the events from more than a week ago showed her how easily she could lose the good things in her life – but for now, she didn't feel alone in the battle to keep what was hers.

“I was just a little edgy,” she admitted. “Must have been the storm. I couldn't sleep, so I thought I might get something to drink.”

“Edgy?” he asked, as he reclined back on his pillows. He reached out his hand for her, and she took it. His palm was warm.

“Yeah... like you know the feeling when you're really content and then this fear just comes out of nowhere? The fear that things couldn't possibly be better so you know that they will get worse eventually, and you're scared of that happening?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, I know what you mean.” After a moment, he added, “But I'm not going to pretend as if I have felt it to the same extent as you have. That would be very arrogant of me. You've had it very hard.”

Lan Fan remained quiet. Although she didn't want pity, she also found it nice that someone acknowledged what she'd been through.

“But try not to worry yourself sick,” Ling continued. “Remember what I said on the day I hired you? It's my neck before yours. Things might not always work out the way we want them to... they rarely do from my experience, but I won't let my friends get hurt if I can help it. I know I haven't been doing a good job lately, so I'm sorry. I need to step it up.”

“No, please don't say that,” Lan Fan said quietly. “I'm the one who should be sorry. And I really am. By withholding so much crucial information, I jeopardized everything you and your friends worked so hard for.”

“To be honest, Lan Fan... sometimes I really do wish you had told me from the beginning. I could have protected you much easier if I had known,” Ling said not unkindly. Lan Fan thought he seemed regretful in a way.

“Ling, I...” she began, and then took a moment to collect her thoughts. “I wanted to ask you something. About the nature of my employment. When you hired me, did you assert the 24/7 protection clause to be able to monitor me better?”

Ling smiled a little. “Why, you didn't think I needed protection around the clock? All this trouble I have caused, and you still think I need to step up my trouble-making game!”

Lan Fan chuckled. “I only meant that you didn't seem to be as vulnerable as I first thought you would be. I only met one of your brothers once, and that was during one of the operations.”

Ling sobered, indicating that he understood what she was trying to say. “You realize though that adding you to the mix was risky enough in itself just because you were an outsider, and you would be privy to pretty much everything I do. I admit that the 24/7 clause helped me to keep an eye on you. But I was hoping that keeping you comfortable would remedy whatever inconvenience that my restrictions might have caused. You were comfortable, weren't you?”

“I was,” Lan Fan admitted. “Very much, actually. And I'm not faulting you. It's just that... I realized when I thought about it before, I was a little disappointed because I thought you were being nice only to mask the fact that you distrusted me.” She added in quieter tone, “Not that I didn't give you any reason not to be suspicious of me.”

“Does it still bother you?” Ling asked.

“No, not anymore. I know you're kind because, well, you're Ling. And we're friends now.”

“We are.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and she could do nothing else but smile at him. There wasn't anything else she had to say anyway. Her apprehension had evaporated, and the storm's rage outside no longer felt threatening. In the silence that blanketed them, the rain even seemed quite comforting, an extra layer that kept the big, precarious world away from the safe familiarity she now shared with Ling. She could now see him better too. In the stark blue shade, he seemed a much ethereal version of his usual joker self. Lan Fan held back a laugh, as she realized what was running through her head.

“What?” Ling asked.

“Nothing!”

He narrowed his eyes, not convinced.

Lan Fan reminded herself of her promise to be more open to him. Awkwardly, she answered, “Er.. don't take this the wrong way. But you kinda look, well... you look really beautiful right now. But not in a bad way!”

Ling looked at her as if he was trying to gauge whether she was serious or not. Then he let out a loud laugh. When he was done, he wiped a few stray tears from his eyes.

“Goodness, Lan Fan! Sometimes you say the oddest things that make me wish our marriage isn't fake.”

She blushed. “Ling! Your mother would be so disappointed!”

He laughed again. After calming down, he snuggled deeper in his covers. “Feeling better?” he asked her.

She nodded. Slowly, he leaned towards their hands still intertwined together, and gave hers a soft kiss. “Goodnight, then.”

Lan Fan was grateful that it was dark. But she briefly wondered if her face looked slightly purple with her reddening skin under the bluish glow from the window. He released her hand, and she went back to her room, back to bed, and finally, went to sleep.

-o-

Edward wondered if Ling was having a better night than he was. Most likely, yes. Almost anyone in the world would be having a better night than Ed. Tucked under sheets not his own, he was waiting for the assailant that Auto-Mail had learned would be paying him a visit. Well, not him _him_. Not Edward Elric. The hitman was here for one named Syaoran Morgan, an Auto-Mail field worker. He was one of the many covert employees hired by the underground network to collect many different kinds of information that Auto-Mail would sell to their clients.

It turned out that Henry Chu was not done harassing Auto-Mailers.

In a panicked fit, Garfiel had informed Winry just earlier that day that Syaoran Morgan was chosen as a target of assassination. He was to be the next reminder for Edward and Winry that Chu had not forgotten, and was still a long way from forgiving.

Edward didn't understand. Using the money that Yuna loaned them, they already paid back all of the money they owed Henry Chu. All four million sens, plus the interest. Yet Chu continued his harassment. He targeted an additional five different Auto-Mailers after gunning down the LeCoultes and rigging Yuna's car. After receiving the payment, his attacks slowed down, but did not completely stop. Edward wished that Yuna would hurry up in Drachma. She planned to spoil his business connections there to distract him from Auto-Mail.

The only good part out of all of this was that Colonel Mustang was as vigilant as ever. So far, only one person had unfortunately perished from the attacks. Combining his team's efforts with Auto-Mail's advanced warnings, they were able to either foil the attacks or save the victims.

And Edward wanted to make sure he kept up that record.

He heard a sound off to the side. Syaoran's condo wasn't the greatest when it came to security. It meant that they had little choice but to plant Edward as a decoy. To his advantage, it also meant that the assailant would have very little reason to be creative in his approach – with very little security to avoid, Ed was sure that the person would be as predictable as ever.

Slowing down his breath to appear as if he was asleep, Edward snuggled deep under Syoaran's comforter, and trained his ear to the almost imperceptible footsteps outside. Cracking one eye open, Ed waited for the tell-tale feeling of an approaching body, before pushing himself off the bed and swinging his arm around.

His fingers grasped hair. Red, long hair. Taking advantage of this, he gripped it tight, and yanked hard. The person – a woman – stumbled over the bed and somersaulted her way to the ground on the opposite side. But she didn't lose a beat. Ed expected that. He knew that someone tasked with direct confrontation wouldn't be useless in self-defense.

Leaping over the bed, he aimed a kick at her face, which she blocked with both arms. An elbow connected to his ribs in a fearsome hit, much stronger than Ed expected, but not strong enough to rival Izumi's training punches. Ignoring the pain, he took advantage of their close positions, and kneed her in the gut. She stumbled back against the wall, grunting.

As quickly as he could, he sprayed a sedative on her struggling form. He caught a whiff of it himself, but he'd already taken the antidote for it that his little brother devised himself. At first, there was no noticeable difference in her. The woman slapped away the spray from his hand, sending it hurtling across the room. Her hand shot out in a punch to his jaw, but Ed dodged just in time, redirecting her aim with a swift jab of his hand.

Just then, Ed noticed the sharp glint of light on metal, and out of the corner of his eye he found that the woman now held a small knife, which she'd pulled from somewhere. She tore at the air before his face, but Ed moved away from the sharp weapon with deftness, relieved that he'd seen it just in time.

Her slashes became steadily sloppy and her footing unsteady. Soon enough, Ed barely had to dodge from her attacks, and he watched as the sedative finally took over her, and she fell unconscious to the floor.

Sighing, he inspected himself to see if there was anything in need of immediate attention that he hadn't noticed during the fight. His right side was sore, and he found his shirt with three rips at the front. But no cut flesh. Nothing but bruises in the worst case scenario.

Moving to where the woman fell, he prodded her cheek with the tip of his boot. She was unmoving. Whelp, time to call up the state militant then.

A few minutes later, when Edward had skillfully tied up the assassin with rope he found in Syaoran's toolbox, Sergeant Brosh stuck his head in the doorway, looking as if he was uncertain whether it was safe to come in.

“Unless you think the boogie monster would come and give you a good licking, there's nothing to hide from,” Ed told him.

Brosh narrowed his eyes at the younger boy, but straightened himself, and walked confidently into the living quarters.

“That's the assassin?” he asked.

“Yep, and I'm hoping she's easier to carry than fight with,” Ed answered.

“You don't look like you had too much trouble,” Brosh commented.

Edward preened. “Why, thank you!”

After attaching handcuffs to her limp form, Brosh and Ed took the woman down to the lobby where a police car was waiting for them. Ed accompanied them to the station, just in case the woman's system managed to overcome the sedative much earlier than expected. But she remained knocked out until they have entered the precinct and Brosh gave him the a-ok to leave.

Ed glanced at his watch. 4:15 am. Well, even if he managed to make it home to Izumi's, he would only have several hours of sleep. Might as well just head over to Winry's, which was much closer. He took out his phone to send a quick text to his foster-mother that he would be spending the rest of the night at Garfiel's place, before hailing a cab to take him there.

When he got to the house, he was surprised to find Winry's bedroom lights open. He slipped through her doorway, deciding to take a peek at what she's doing before he headed for the guest bedroom. She was at her computer, typing furiously away.

“Win?”

She gasped, startled. She turned around and glowered at him.

“What are you doing here at 5 in the morning?” she whispered harshly.

“Uhm, I was going to sleep, which as you know, is a pretty normal thing to do at 5 in the morning,” he answered right back. “What are _you_ doing?”

She snorted, then turned her frown back to her computer screen. “Foiling a dox.”

Ed frowned, and entered the room completely. He sat on her bed, looking over her shoulder at the computer.

“Who is getting doxxed?”

“Believe it or not, Dr. Marcoh,” Winry explained. “I bet he's doing this just to scare us. Give us a warning _not_ to cross him ever again. Hah, we'll see about that.”

“Yeah, what is Ms. Yuna doing up in Drachma? Do you know?” he asked.

“I don't, but let's give her time. It's Ms. Yuna we're talking about here. She could be planning to make a volcano erupt for all we know.” Winry flipped through a few windows successively, before resuming her mad typing.

“There are no volcanoes in Drachma,” Ed commented. “Not active ones anyway. In any case, how are you stopping this doxxing?”

“Well, Dr. Marcoh's hideout was revealed on the net by a troll. I can't do anything about that now, so I'm just making as many troll accounts on as many social networks as I can, and having them provide false information.”

Edward smirked. He watched Winry run a script that sent hundreds of server requests to post random addresses and contact information by anonymous commentators. If anyone ever wished to find out Dr. Marcoh's whereabouts, they were going to have to tread through thousands, if not millions, of contradicting information, never knowing which among them was the correct one.

“Alright, I'll leave you to that.” He stood up and headed out of her room.

“Ed?” Winry called after him.

“Yes?”

“Take a bath before you go to bed!”

He rolled his eyes.

-o-

Henry Chu entered a vault in his new office in Youswell. The twenty-five acres of land in the mining town was the ideal spot to build a new XYZ Ltd. branch to serve not only the local farming villages, but also the nearest cities in Xing across the dessert. A series of rail networks made it easy to commute between the two countries should the need arise.

And there would be need soon.

He was glad that Colonel Mustang had approved of the collateral he requested. The office was not yet ready for business – that would take several more weeks of hard construction. But one part of the building was already finished, and it was here that he'd asked the architects to install a secret vault-like room. He would have to take care of those architects and carpenters later, but for now, Henry marveled at how solidly it's been built.

He set down the special suitcase he brought along. It was sealed air-tight, but at a single finger scan, it opened itself to reveal a large glass jar encased inside the suitcase's velvet padding.

Inside was bat guano.

It took a long time for people to discover the source of the Cretan Plague. But deep in the southern forests of Creta was a series of underground caves inhabited by vicious bats. One of the locals had visited the caves, unwittingly contracting the disease. When he visited the markets, well... everything else went downhill from there.

Henry had reserved the guano for his experiments with the Red Stone. But now, it would serve a different purpose. He took the jar out from the suitcase, and opened one of the metal drawers in the room. Henry gently placed the jar inside, then locked the drawer and gathered up his suitcase.

He didn't like to carry the guano around. Even when it was encased in something so secure, there was always the risk of _something_ happening that would release the guano from its confines. Of course, he never had to worry about that again. He had Red Stones after all.

He left the room with the suitcase in tow. At this time of the day, the construction workers weren't around just yet. But in the distance he could already see the fumes from the smelters far away. The people of Youswell were hard working and dedicated to their mining business.

As soon as he stepped out of the building, his cell phone went off.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Sir, we've just been notified that several Drachman businesses have pulled their investments from XYZ Ltd.,” the person on the opposite end informed him.

“What? Which ones?”

“Pendleton Corp., Stavley and Sons, N&W... a couple more.”

Henry stopped walking towards his parked car. Something nagged at him. Pendleton Corp. was a geothermal company providing advanced electric sources to the Drachman populace. Stavley and Sons was a diamond cartel. N&W provided tourism services on the Drachman mountain ranges. Something wasn't quite right here. They all seemed to be related to...

“Did they give a reason why?” he barked, almost angry that the person didn't immediately elaborate, when really it was the most significant piece of information he needed to know.

“They were worried about the state of their business. Their stocks have fallen, and they needed the money from the investment to help stabilize the situation.”

“What happened to their businesses? Why are their stocks falling?”

“You haven't heard? Apparently, there's a nation-wide scare, sir. Of a volcano eruption.”

Henry paused, and almost laughed. He felt torn between hanging up or cracking a joke.

“A volcano,” Henry repeated. “In Drachma? All the mountains there are dormant!”

“For some reason, one of them started to give signs of activity near midnight.”

That's it. Henry pressed the end-call button on his phone's screen so hard that the screen cracked. He made his way to his car and threw the stupid gadget on the passenger seat. He opened up the news radio. He only had to wait a few minutes before newscasters began covering the story of how smoke was seen above one of Drachma's towering mass of rock and that volcanic activity was confirmed by scientists.

“Dammit!” he yelled, slamming his fists on his steering wheel. The Drachman businesses that pulled out were _huge_. Their absence would be felt throughout XYZ Ltd.

Great. Just great. This was just what he needed right now. Even that stupid  Mámù  hadn't contacted him for days to update him on that stupid Xingese nation-hopper. Was nobody else in this god-forsaken land capable of  _ anything _ ?

Angrily, he revved up his car, and drove back to his main office in Central City.

-o-

Mei looked at the decrepit building, checking to see if the number indicated by the rusting metal plates on the gate matched the one written on the paper she was holding. _82 Looker Street_. Well, she and Alphonse got the place right. Except nothing about this little section of the town could quite be described by the word 'looker'.

“You think this is really his home?” Al asked her.

“I don't know. Your brother said that Dr. Marcoh relocates many times a year. This might not be his home, but this is where he lives for now,” Mei answered. She folded the piece of paper, and tucked it away into her pocket. Together, they walked through the lobby of the apartment building, and took the elevator up to the fifth floor.

Al knocked on the third unit. After a moment or two, the door opened. Behind it was a kind-looking old man with a graying mop of hair.

“Dr. Marcoh?” Al asked. “I am Alphonse Elric, and this is my friend, Mei Chang.”

“Ah, yes. Winry Rockbell gave me a heads up about both of you. Come in.” He opened the door wider to allow the two of them to enter his apartment. The unit was small but neat, cozy despite its sparseness. But that was to be expected from someone who moved a lot. He offered them a seat and asked if they wanted anything to drink. Mei politely declined, though Al accepted a glass of water.

“I take it you're here about the Red Stone,” Dr. Marcoh stated as he took a seat across from them.

“Yes,” Mei answered. “We were told that you were one of the doctors who helped develop it.” When they had noticed Dr. Marcoh's name signed on one of the documents from the files that Lieutenant Hawkeye allowed them to browse through, Winry decided that perhaps it would be best if they contacted Marcoh to see if he was open to discussing the project with them.

He'd been a quiet one. All this time, he had offered his services to clients of Auto-Mail, and none of them had known that he'd been involved in one of the biggest game-changers in medical history. It was rare that Auto-Mail had such an oversight.

Marcoh was quiet for some time. He sighed, almost forlornly. With a wave of his hand as if attempting to dismiss the subject, all he said was, “The project is dead. The Red Stone could never be what we want it to be.”

Al gave her a sideways glance.

“Actually, the Red Stone _has_ been created, and it is already circulating in the underground markets,” Mei informed him. She watched as the old man stilled. Then doubt and quiet horror slowly appeared on his face.

“That's impossible!” he whispered.

Al shook his head. “No, sir. We have evidence that someone has been using it. And from what we know, they've been using it for about two years now.”

“But do you know what it takes to create that medicine?” he asked, his eyes full of fear. “President Grumman would never allow it! He disbanded the research group after our deadlock couldn't be resolved. He agreed that the means is much too horrific for the ends.” He clutched the arms of his chair.

“That's the thing. The prototype that you and your team created was given away,” Mei explained. “It was used as collateral in a loan from XYZ Ltd., a loan that saved the country from Bradley and saw Grumman's rump on the highest seat in the government.”

“Henry Chu has used the prototype to create more advanced versions of the Red Stone,” Al finished. He didn't say what anyone with some common sense would deduce from that comment: that Henry Chu would never be above experimenting on people if he managed to build something as phenomenal as a cure-all antidote.

The look of horror deepened on Dr. Marcoh's face. “ _Henry Chu?_ But... but how could Grumman have let that happen?”

“They were desperate. They had very little choice. It doesn't matter now. What matters is that we need to find another way to create this medicine,” Al said.

Dr. Marcoh shook his head as if trying to rid it of confusion and shock. “There is no other way!” he exclaimed. “The best we can hope for is to bury this knowledge, the very _idea,_ of this medicine. Nobody should be tempted to make it. Go to the State Military and ask them to take care of Henry Chu.”

“We are trying to do that already. But don't you see? With his hoard of Red Stones and a recipe book for how to make more, Henry Chu is basically one of the most powerful men in the entire country! Perhaps the entire continent!” Mei countered. “Already, he's used this medicine to extort, manipulate, blackmail and toy with people's lives! There will always be things to cure. We'll never run out of diseases or accidents. The only way we can dethrone Chu from his position of power is if we can also provide the very thing he monopolizes. Only _then_ we can take his power away.”

The doctor stood up and turned around, his head bowed. “This is very, very bad... but I'm afraid you're talking to the wrong person.” He turned to them, eyes haunted and defeated. “I really don't know of another way. If I do, I would have implored to revive the project long ago, you see.”

Al set down his glass. “People will kill for this,” he said softly. “They already have. With Henry Chu the only one who can create the Red Stone, the entire country might descend into chaos. People would bid for it. They wouldn't care that people would have to suffer for this thing to be created – not when they have their own priorities to think about. Even good people would sacrifice others for it, if they have someone they want to save...”

Al trailed off into silence and Mei knew that he was thinking about Lan Fan.

“Dr. Marcoh,” she began, turning back to the old man ahead of her. “If you don't know an alternative method now, would it be possible for you to think of one soon?”

“I don't know...” Marcoh admitted. “It took a team of thirty doctors and researchers to even get as much progress as we actually did. The problem is, how do we make the cells learn without training? It's impossible.”

“Ten years ago, nobody thought a medicine like this would be possible either,” Al said, trying to sound encouraging.

“Still... we're not running a magic show. We can't do anything that defies the law of nature. We can't expect a miracle just because we ask for one.”

“Won't you work with us at all?” Mei asked.

That caught Dr. Marcoh's attention. He looked back at them, eyeing them as if he was seeing them under a different light.

“Work with _you_? You mean... hmm. You're young but...” he whispered almost to himself. “I didn't think that you were planning to do something about it yourselves.”

“There's no one else,” Al told him. “Everyone else had given up. Just like you did.”

“What is your plan?” Dr. Marcoh asked. “Creating the Red Stone from scratch without testing on live subjects might not be the most realistic goal here.”

“Well that's what we're aiming for,” Mei said, trying not to sound disappointed. She really did hope that perhaps Marcoh had some little trick, some kind of secret, up his sleeve that would make their lives a little easier. Now she only felt like a naïve little girl, rushing impulsively into something that was way over her head.

“No Plan B?”

She and Alphonse looked at each other. Even if they got rid of her father, the Red Stone had already leaked into the market. That was enough to pique people's attention.

There was one other alternative, one that was much less appealing, but could be the only way to stop the chaos that would ensue once people started vying for it.

“We need to destroy all the Red Stones that my father made,” Mei answered. “And deal with everyone involved in its development or anyone else who knows about it. But we have to ensure that that's only our last resort. If we can, we need to find another way to make the stones.”

-o-

“Wait, Ma... so what exactly did you do?”

“Oh c'mon, like it's hard to activate a dormant volcano?” Ling's mother answered, her face sporting a self-satisfied smirk. Ling thought she looked way too smug on the screen of his smart phone.

“How about all those villagers at the foot of the mountain?” Ling asked, close to panic.

His Ma clicked her tongue. “Ah I'm joking, okay? Don't worry too much. I didn't do anything to the mountain. I did, however, had the sensors act up a little.”

Ling gave her a disbelieving look. “I don't think the Drachman officials would be making such a fuss about it if it's just a bug.”

“I have my ways,” Yuna shrugged. “Now, tell me about what's going there in the East.”

“I'm in the hospital right now,” Ling answered. “Grandpa, Lan Fan and I are visiting Fu to see how he's doing.” Fu was not yet awake, but Lan Fan was allowed to see him and sit by him. Knowing that she might want a few moments by herself, Ling opted to stay in the waiting area, where he decided to give his mother a call.

“And?” his mother prompted. “How is Fu?”

“Surprisingly better!” Ling admitted. He knew that Amestris lagged a little behind Xing when it came to medical advancements, though he probably wouldn't be making an exactly fair statement considering that Lan Fan never went to a specialist in Amestrist. Back then, she had relied on the Red Stone to fix up anything that might be wrong with her grandfather without actually knowing what those might be. With some help from the doctors here in Xing, Fu had received some operations and medicines to actually alleviate a few of his ailments.

Off the bat, some of the improvements were noticeable. When he had looked through the window on the door to Fu's room, he found the old man's usual pallid complexion tinged with some colour. The doctors had reported that his breathing had eased and his fever was gone. Lan Fan had relaxed visibly.

“That's good to know,” Yuna commented. “You guys won't be able to get Red Stones there in Xing. And it did seem to me as if the Red Stone wasn't really making Fu better. Hopefully with the attention he gets there, he does start making some real progress.”

Ling noticed Lan Fan exit her grandfather's room and start making her way to the waiting area.

“I'll call you later, Ma,” he said, before hanging up.

He greeted Lan Fan's obvious relief with a smile. “So?” he asked.

“Well, Grandpa woke up, so the nurses had to do several check-ups,” she told him. “But he looks way better! His eyes were clear, and he didn't look like he was in too much pain. He asked me about you, and I said that your Grandfather is letting me stay at your compound. He would probably like to speak with you later.”

Ling grimaced. “Did you tell him about the... uh, the marriage.”

“Nah, I didn't want to overwhelm him yet.” Lan Fan added, “For his sake though, we really have to emphasize that it's fake.”

They sat down on the benches off to the side of the hallway, waiting for Shàngwǔ to return from a call he was making in the lobby of the hospital.

“I've been meaning to ask you,” she said, turning to him. “What happened to school?”

Ling shrugged, “I deferred my courses.”

She sighed, her head bowed.

“Don't worry too much,” he reassured her. “A lot of first-years don't complete required courses right away anyway. The University program is super-flexible. I'll come back next semester and start over.” He didn't add the part that perhaps going back the following semester was being too optimistic.

“And Ms. Yuna?” she asked.

“Oh out and about, here and there. Making trouble, it seems like. Nobody messes with Ma's car and gets away with it unscathed.”

Lan Fan's lips curled into a small, knowing smile.

“Ma will try to distract my father away from us and Auto-Mail,” Ling said. “At least, that's her plan. I don't know how long it would last for. Your captors haven't reported back to him in a while. He will get suspicious soon, and might start to look for you again.”

“He'd know I'm here,” Lan Fan said, almost as if she was certain. “He's bound to realize that you've quit your school, and you must have come to Xing. He'll know for sure that you have something to do with my rescue.”

“He won't be able to do much about it though,” he said. “That's one of the benefits of hailing from such a large, powerful clan. My father wouldn't risk attacking the Yaos, not unless he wants his own poor clan to bear the blunt of a retaliation.”

“Speaking of the Chu clan, have you figured out a way we can discover your father's plans?”

Ling shook his head, his bangs swaying with the movement. “No, I didn't. But what I did figure out is that maybe... maybe we don't need to know the specifics.”

“How are we supposed to stop whatever 'evil' schemes he has up his sleeve then?”

“That's the thing... I was thinking that instead of focusing on something so precise, maybe we should target something more general. Something that my father's plans would really depend on, no matter what those plans might be.”

The girl beside him thought for a while. “The most obvious one I can think of is his wealth. You planning to rob him blind or something?”

Ling laughed. “I wish it were that easy! But nah, robbing him wouldn't take care of the steady flow of money into his bank accounts. Within a few weeks, he'd be good to go again.”

She sent him a slow frown. “I'm sensing another Operation Greed. You really think that the only way to outdo your father is to bring XYZ Ltd. down!”

He didn't respond to that for a moment, not because it wasn't true, but that it actually was. Partly. Perhaps his brain had just gotten caught up in that singular mindset, so much so that it was hard to think outside the box. But every time he thought about it, the only solution he kept coming up with was to target his father's business.

“Well, it's what makes him powerful. It funds every single one of his ventures. He wouldn't even have been able to develop the Red Stones if he couldn't pay his way through the research. More than that, the company is almost like a living entity in and of itself. If somehow we were to eliminate my father, it's possible that someone else would just takeover the company and start where he left off.”

“It's also possible that Chu can build another 7-11 business,” Lan Fan pointed out.

“His momentum would be slow. If he decides to start from scratch, I doubt it would be as big as XYZ Ltd. To add to that, the total failure of his previous company would make investors wary.”

“So, whatever this Operation Greed 3.0 is, it has to be huge and very, _very_ damaging to your father's business.”

Ling leaned his head back on the wall. Not even two weeks after the failure of Operation Greed 2.0, and here he was again, brewing the next one. He didn't feel that good about it. Twice, he had made huge mistakes that put a lot of people he cared about in danger. And who knew how many more had been affected by his reckless actions.

“We have to begin preparing anyway,” she told him. “Your Grandfather is right. Whatever Chu is planning, he's not going to come with sticks and stones – not if he intends to butt heads with the governing body of two nations! We only have a month. The earlier we start, the better.”

“I just wish we knew where to hit him. Somewhere that makes the most damage,” he whispered. “Every time I fail, I just can't help but think that my father has no weaknesses.”

An hour later, a nurse came to them to let them know that Fu would be able to see them. Ling was glad that his own grandfather was done with his business call so that the Yao chief could introduce himself to Fu... and perhaps be a supportive crutch once it was time to tell the old man of Ling's mischievous ploy to rescue his granddaughter from the clutches of Chu's men.

Fu was sitting up on the bed, propped by fluffed up pillows. His face was neutral, though his eyes glinted with an ease that Ling had never before saw in them. Lan Fan sat beside him and took his hand in her own.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him gently.

He snorted, “Like I can actually breathe!”

She chuckled. “I'm guessing that's a good thing.”

Fu looked past her shoulder, up at Ling and Shàngwǔ.

“Uh, right. Ling helped us leave the worn-down shack we were trapped in,” Lan Fan explained. “This is Mister Shàngwǔ, Ms. Yuna's father. He's taking care of the hospital costs, and is letting me stay at their home.”

Fu's eyes narrowed, clearly understanding the large debt that he owed, and knowing that all this kindness might not have been transacted for free. Lan Fan looked back at Ling, then awkwardly pulled out the certificate that she's obligated to carry with her everywhere.

“For now, we have a... fake arrangement. While we haven't sorted out our citizenship status yet, it's best we play along.” She unfolded the document, and showed it to her grandfather.

Ling felt, more than saw, the flash of movement when the sick, old man catapulted from the far end of the bed to grab him by his collar. In a blink, what was once filled with blank space, Ling's vision was now entirely occupied by Fu's seething face.

“Just what do you think you're doing to my granddaughter?” Fu snarled.

“Sweet, holy mother of god,” Ling answered, knowing full well that that wasn't a reasonable response at all, but not knowing what else he could say.

A laugh erupted from behind him, and he relaxed a little when his own grandfather reached out to put a calming hand on Fu's shoulder.

“Relax, my friend,” Shàngwǔ said. “Please, trust in the honour of the Yaos! You and your granddaughter are regarded as precious guests, and we only extend to you the hospitality you deserve.”

Fu descended into a small coughing fit, which urged Lan Fan to put him back below the covers.

“Don't worry too much about things, Grandpa. They're taking good care of both of us.”

Ling found a chair in the corner of the room on which to sit and allow his heart rate to go back to normal. Fu could be so scary at times. He must have been a very efficient warrior back in the day. Ling wondered if Lan Fan had ever been scared of the man when she'd been younger. He was probably very strict with her.

Taking deep breaths, he looked around the small room. It wasn't bad, not at all. Quite cozy, despite the nauseating smell of anesthetic that seemed to be the natural aroma of every single hospital that Ling had visited. Beside the chair was a small table. A potted bonsai sat on top, accompanied by a folder with several coloured papers inside. Curious, Ling flipped the folder open and found some of Fu's information inside. There seemed to be several copies of one document, created by a carbon paper attached to the back of the top page.

While Lan Fan explained the events of the past few days, Ling found himself playing with the carbon layer of the paper, scraping off bits and pieces. The residue accumulated beneath his fingernail, and he blew on it to get it out. He watched as the residue fell, crumbling on top of the table.

It was strange how something so flimsy like that could be made of the same element as the hardest mineral in the entire planet. Carbon was so interesting. What made a material strong in certain cases could also make it the weakest in others.

Ling paused.

He replayed the thought in his mind.

Just then, he realized that he'd always been so busy looking for a weakness in his father, that he never bothered to really look at his strengths. Strengths that could become weaknesses under the appropriate conditions and circumstances.

Ling smiled. He just had an idea.

-o-

Paninya clicked her boots against the ceramic tiles of the rooftop. Not her rooftop. She didn't know whose house it was. It just had a nice view from the roof. The suburbs were one of the places she liked to roam at night when she needed to think clearly. She liked the cities too – higher buildings always gave her a high, but nobody slept in the cities. It was noisy and bright; not ideal for mind-clearing.

Find the 2 million sens, they said. Hurry up about it, they said.

_Winry, you owe me big_ . 

These people had next to no idea how to find stolen objects! They think she was a miracle worker! There was craft to stealing, an art that very few could master. Subverting a theft was an even finer art.

Paninya snickered. Look how far she made it! The very admins of Auto-Mail was trusting her to find stolen money (and a lot of it too!), and bring it all back to them. She felt a soft ember of pride when she thought about it.

And a little pissed too. Didn't they know how difficult the task they asked her to do? And within such little time too!

She'd already explored Manos's apartment. But she'd already known before she went there that she wouldn't find the money stored there. Thieves never put the money where they live. But she went anyway, because she was sure that Hunter Manos would have known other people wouldn't think that he'd put the money there, so it would be the best place to put the money.

Paninya shook her head. Thinking recursively like this always hurt her head. At least, when she tried to analyze things deeply and accurately. She relied more on gut instinct. Most of the time, she would just get a very strong  _hunch_ about a certain place, and that was where she would find the object she was looking for.

She straightened her stance and looked ahead of her to the East. She breathed in and out for a few moments.

Nothing. No hunches.

She shrugged, and turned to the North.

An hour ride north would take her to Central Area. Her mind quickly flashed through the different possible places that someone could stash cash there – basically, anywhere. And that was as good as nowhere. If nothing stood out, Paninya's rule was that it wasn't worth exploring.

Turning around slowly, she scanned the horizon, seeing in her mind's eye the many landmarks she memorized. Each landmark determined what the area would be like – a shopping centre tended to be surrounded with high-density residential blocks. Factories were usually surrounded by a large expanse of land; nobody really wanted to dwell in buildings right beside factories. So on and so forth.

Finally she faced South. South City was where the final stage of Operation Greed 2.0 occurred. Ling said he had checked the bag of money twice before the day had dawned. If Manos didn't have any accomplice in his betrayal, the most likely hiding place for the money would be somewhere in South City, where the boy would have enough time to relocate two million sens and be there on time for the operation.

Intuitively, Paninya skipped down the sloped roof and took a graceful jump across to the next house.

She had known her best bet was South City, but after a week of looking, she was nowhere near close. That was why she wanted to try out other areas, but nothing gave her that instinctive pull like South City did.

Now, Winry had called her mere hours before and told her that Ling was planning something big on the other side of the continent. And they needed the money as soon as possible.

Paninya jumped from roof to roof until she reached the end of the block. She hailed a cab – filing away the credit for Winry to reimburse later; after all, it was an expense incurred for a job. She went straight to the heart of South City where the operation took place.

Hunter Manos had posed as one of the admins that would be questioned by the State Military. He would have been in the rented office where the co-admins were supposedly having an early morning administrative session. Paninya trekked over to the building where Edward had rented the office.

The building was closed now. It didn't matter. Simple things like that didn't stand in her way. She managed to get in within a few minutes. It was dark but the hallways were lined with small fluorescent bulbs. She took the stairs to the second floor, and entered the office they rented.

Her first thought was that she hoped the cleaning services didn't manage to stumble across two million sens here, because if they did, Paninya was certain she would no longer be able to find it. And the room gleaned in the bluish glow of the moonlight. It was as clean as offices could get.

She roamed around slowly, observing every crook and canny on the walls, knocking on desks and furniture for hidden compartments. She would usually also check the obvious places, just in case people applied the convoluted logic of nobody looking for it there. But this time, she was sure that had the money been that obvious, it would already be filched by other people.

Paninya came to the large oaken desk at the center. This was probably where the co-admins had sat, waiting for the signal from the colonel. She stepped towards one of the seat when –

She paused and cocked her head as she listened to her step. Something felt hollow on the floor. Crouching down, she pushed aside the rug that covered the wooden panels, and knocked against them. She smirked.

Flashing an army knife from her pocket, she slid the edge of a sharp knife in between two of the panels, and lifted one of them up. It came away easily, and the rest of the panels peeled back when she pushed them away. Below was a small cubby hole where a black velvet bag lay.

Bingo!

Lacing her fingers through the rope that tied the bag, she pulled away the edges until the knot came undone. She smelled the aroma of fresh bills before she even saw the slips of paper. Her grin widened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Alrighty! Ling's resurrecting Operation Greed. Again. I'm sure you'll all know how this one would turn out, right? Hehe. For pacing's sake, there would be a significant time skip starting next chapter. I figure the planning stage is best left secret, so that we can all watch OG 3.0 unravel with some anticipation!
> 
> Oh, the thunder-storm scene was kindly requested by SailingTheOTP. So if you enjoyed that scene, you have her to thank for that!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thank you so much for everyone who reviewed the last chapter! Because I got a lot, I will be able to start working on the next chapter as soon as possible.

“Youswell is a strange place for big things to happen,” Lan Fan noted, as she shrugged on the new leather jacket that Ling gave her. The Yao province was a little lower than Amestris in terms of latitude, and so despite the deepening autumn, the weather had been mild. It wouldn't be like that once they crossed the border back to Amestris.

And seeing that she hadn't brought any additional clothes with her – not that she had a choice when she was abducted – it was up to Ling's charitable nature to buy her what she needed. Her profuse thanks were met with a broad grin and a cheeky remark about being his  _ wife _ (at least on paper) and that he had a husbandly duty to take care of her. 

“Youswell has mines, and lots of it,” Ling answered. “I don't think it's strange at all. Have you never seen action horror movies? The ones with caves and dark spooky places, where a claustrophobic would lose all of their wits?”

Lan Fan acceded the point. She just didn't think it would be where Henry Chu would make his move. But then again, there was nothing predictable about the man.

Even now, just three days before the dreaded signing of the free-trade agreement, none of them knew exactly what the Xingese loan-shark was planning. The only thing they discovered was Chu's intentions on intercepting President Grumman's meeting with the Xingese Ambassador in Youswell. They had Ridel LeCoulte to thank for that. His sophisticated bit of software at least helped in determining a crucial point in Chu's plans, even if it failed to provide a reliable prediction about the rest of his endeavours.

Mámù was of no help either. Brought to the brink of her life by some of  Shàngwǔ's best interrogators, it seemed true that the woman new nothing else about what her master intended to do. All she kept reiterating was that Chu believed the policy would destroy the Chu clan. Despite herself, Lan Fan felt pity for  Mámù , and convinced  Shàngwǔ that it was not worth questioning her further.

“How is Auto-Mail handling things?” Lan Fan asked.

“Winry assured me that the collaterals are on lock. They can't make any moves yet, but when they get a signal, they are in a good position for a release,” Ling answered. He shoved several documents and his laptop into his backpack. Their plane ride back to Amestris was tonight. They were riding on a red-eye. But by the time they get there, supposing nothing went wrong with her passport, the remaining two days would be chaotic with the organizing and coordinating.

Just thinking about it made Lan Fan's heart skip a beat with anxiety. It reminded her of their preparation for Operation Greed 2.0. To say that Operation Greed 3.0 was bigger than the previous one was a serious understatement. This one was huge. If they failed, it could ruin the lives of millions of people across two countries. Even when they were well-prepared for OG 2.0, things still went awry. How well could they execute a plan that hinged halfway on so many unknowns?

To make up for their lack of knowledge about Henry Chu's machinations, Ling came up with a comprehensive plot involving once again Auto-Mail and a fraction of the Amestrian state militants that were sympathetic to their cause. It was a huge, risky move. Ling wanted their side to be prepared for anything; since they did not know what the man had up his sleeves, the only way to stop him would be to persuade him to abort his plans.

And the only way they could do that was if they had a massive incentive. A deal-breaker that Chu would never be able to ignore.

When she first heard of Ling's plan, she wasn't sure they would be able to pull off such a gigantic move. She doubted that they would have the resources to implement it, but Ling didn't back down. He urged Auto-Mail and their acquaintances in the Amestrian State Military to do everything they could to prepare for the operation. He didn't believe that he could aim for a small-scaled project and hope it would turn out differently than the last two times.

“Hey,” Lan Fan felt Ling's warm hand grip her shoulder comfortingly. “I know my plans have a habit of not working out, but I assure you that this time I'm not going to let my friends get hurt.” His eyes searched hers, and Lan Fan immediately knew what he was imploring.

“And I promise that I will not do anything behind your backs anymore,” Lan Fan stated with as much conviction as she could. They deserved that much. After trusting her to be part of the operation again, it was the least she could do. Her utmost loyalty was the very least she could give. “I won't let my choices harm you and your friends again.”

He smiled at her, lifting a hand to play with the fringe of hair that framed her right cheek. “That's good to know,” he said as he leaned in to embrace her. It was one of his typical strong, warm hugs, and Lan Fan had gotten used to the feeling by now not to clam up and shy away. Instead, she slung her arm around his, allowing herself to savour one of the things she'd truly come to enjoy in their friendship.

“Mmh, sometimes I wish I had my other arm,” she said against his ear. “Then it would be a real hug.”

He gave her a slight squeeze. “I don't know what you're talking about. This is perfect.”

-o-

Winry woke up to a warm weight falling gently on her shoulders. The fluorescent light from the lamp on her desk brightened her view, and an ache at the back of her neck jolted her into full, clear consciousness.

“It's getting cold, so I uhm... thought you'd need a blanket,” Edward explained from behind her. Winry straightened and rubbed her eyes.

“You're still here?” she mumbled, as she stifled a yawn. “I thought you'd be spending the night back at your mother's, with Al.”

Ed shrugged. “We're going out to Resembool early tomorrow morning anyway. We might as well go together. Alphonse would be stationed at Central during the operation.”

Winry shook her head sadly. “I'm surprised Izumi hasn't complained yet about me for stealing so much of your time from home.”

Ed leaned against her desk. “Please! If she wanted me to stay home more often she shouldn't always be roughing me up!”

“You know she worries about you, right? She only wants you to be safe.”

“Yes, I know that,” Ed sighed, deflating. “Which is why I know she's got nothing against you. She knows you take good care of me.”

Winry looked up, and found Ed averting his gaze from her, cheeks ruddy. She rolled her eyes, stood up from her chair, and leaned against him to kiss him on the cheek.

“Sometimes I forget you're actually capable of saying something sweet.”

His blush deepened, but he didn't shrug her off.

“Everything ready for the big day?” he asked instead.

“Everything is as ready as they can be. Except for me, perhaps.”

He laced his fingers with hers. “Don't worry. If anything happens, it'll be Ling's head on a pike.”

Winry chuckled, but it didn't actually make her feel better.

-o-

Riza sat languidly at her desk, eyes tracking the inked words on the documents, but she was unable to absorb what they said. It didn't matter. She'd read their plans many times over, had them memorized for the Colonel and the rest of the team. Still, the nagging whisper of worry blocked the lullaby of sleep, and she could do nothing but stare at the pages, hoping to see something that would set her at ease.

Black Hayate purred by her leg, snuggling against her sweatpants. Riza sighed, and picked up the small puppy, cradling him in her arms.

She and her grandfather had never been too close. They were estranged, but it didn't prevent her from feeling something akin to worry, for reasons other than political ones. There was a good chance that if they played their cards wrong in the upcoming operation, President Grumman might die. The Colonel assured her that they wouldn't let it come to that.

“It will be okay,” she whispered to herself, knowing full well that her apprehension would never make things better. Absentmindedly, she flipped through the pages, and found the section for her role. She paused, eyes roaming over the words she now knew by heart.

The ring of her phone startled her from her nebulous thoughts, and she picked it up knowing exactly who would call her this time of the night.

“Colonel,” she replied, instead of the usual 'hello'.

“I knew you'd still be up by this hour,” he said, chuckling a little. “Now Lieutenant, why don't you switch off the lights, put down the dog, and get into your bed? That's an order.”

“Yes, sir,” Riza answered, but did none of those things. “Though I'd have to point out that none of those are remedies to insomnia.”

“Well, technically I didn't ask you to sleep. I also didn't ask you to hang up the phone.”

Riza smiled.

“How about it, Lieutenant?”

She sighed, but finally stood up and began to do what he'd asked. “Consider it done, sir.”

-o-

_Three Days Later_

At 8:30 am, the President would be checking out of the Rejo Hotel three miles from the mining town of Youswell, where he spent the past week finalizing the necessary material for the meeting with the Xingese Ambassador. The designated meeting place was in the Liang province of Xing. Henry Chu came to the hotel to intercept the President under the guise of delivering a present from the Xingese Ambassador. Beside his seat in the car lay a heavy container the size of a shoe box that contained absolutely nothing of consequence. But it was decorated with the official insignia of Xing, and engraved with a forgery of the ambassador's signature. Henry even donned on a Xingese-style modern suit, something that he rarely wore.

“What about the human cargo?” Henry asked the driver, just as they turned to an empty space in between two fine, shiny vehicles.

“Both arrived safely past midnight,” the driver answered. “Just as planned.”

It better be. Henry was getting a little tired of all the impediments to his plans these past few weeks. It would be quite nice if something started going his way. He grabbed the velvet box beside him, and made his way with the driver to the lobby of Rejo Hotel.

Checking in was a breeze. All it took were the right names, details and co-words for them to allow Henry access to the highest floor of the hotel. There were guards assigned to him who led the way to the president's suite, but he was certain that he would have no problem persuading the President to dismiss those burly brutes when the need would arise. He wasn't here to harm the President. He was here to do what he did best: make a deal.

One of the guards knocked on the door, and they waited for Grumman's approval before the heavy set doors opened before them. Henry stepped through the threshold, and observed the busy buzzing of the old man as he packed away his belongings.

“I do apologize for the haphazard way I'm greeting an emissary from Xing,” Grumman croaked out, fighting with a stubborn something or other in his luggage, which occupied the heavy wooden table that was supposed to serve as an office desk. “I promise that this is not the way Ambassador Guang will see me.”

“That is quite alright, sir,” Henry said with an oily stir in his voice that caused Grumman to look up momentarily from his bag.

“Now, aren't you a familiar face?” Grumman said as he straightened up and adjusted the spectacles sitting on the bridge of his nose. “Something tells me that's not a gilded pen set in that pretty box you got there.”

Henry smiled, feeling the guards on either side of him tense. They both reached for the weapons by their belts, but Henry didn't waver.

“I passed the security check thoroughly, Mr. President,” Henry said. “I'm not loaded. It would be unfair for you to meet an unarmed man with such hostility, don't you think?”

Grumman stared at him for a few moments, before nodding.

“Fair enough. What is it that you want?” Grumman asked.

“A little private chat,” Henry answered, and it didn't take the old man too long to understand what was being asked of him. With a nod of his head, he sent the two guards out of the room, although their hesitance was evident on their faces and movements.

“If you've come here to bait me into a contract with you, this is some ill timing,” President Grumman said. “I'm not short on cash just yet, and I'm just on my way to a very important meeting with the Ambassador of Trade from Xing. Though from what I assume is your 'disguise,' I have a hunch that you knew about that already.”

“Pretty perceptive,” Henry stated. “And don't you worry. I'm not here to negotiate a contract. At least, not the kind where I loan you money.”

“Get on with it,” Grumman waved a hand. “You know I don't like dramatics.”

“Alright,” Henry said, stepping over to one of the single-seat sofas. He sat down and tossed the box aside. “I know the purpose of your meeting with the Ambassador. We all know that the Amestrian economy has been in shambles since the coup d'etat. The poverty and unemployment rates have sky-rocketed in the years since, and your citizens run amok in the black markets. A free-trade agreement with Xing will create more demand for Amestrian goods and services, which will increase employment rates across the country. Moreover, cheap Xingese produce would enter the borders without any tariffs, providing an inexpensive alternative to some of the people's basic needs.”

“Yes, yes,” Grumman waved his hand again. “I know all this. It is exactly why the government has agreed to pursue a Free Trade Agreement in the first place.”

“I just want to assure you that I can see the allure of this agreement very clearly. That said, I want you to reject it.”

He paused to allow Grumman some time to let his words sink in. He knew that the President had been in some intense and productive negotiations over the last few months to come to an agreement over what the free-trade entailed. Henry took some pleasure in knowing how much of that planning was now amounting to moot. Carefully assessing Grumman's expression, he watched as the president's eyebrows shot up disbelievingly on his forehead, so much so that Henry almost ruined the moment by laughing.

After a few moments of befuddled silence, Grumman cleared his throat.

“I don't believe I heard that right,” the old man commented. “Let me get this straight. It appeared as if you were asking me to forego the policy even if it is what this country needs to catapult itself out of the economic disaster of the coup d'etat?”

“That's the idea,” Henry nodded.

Grumman burst out laughing, and Henry decided to play along and laugh. After all, if there was one of them who would eventually realize this was no laughing matter, it would be Grumman.

“I'm surprised, Mr. Chu,” he said. “Wouldn't you want the Amestrian economy to recover? I mean, I don't know about you, but your business kind of depends upon it.”

“Don't you worry about XYZ Ltd., Mr. President. My business is my own, after all. I have full control over it,” Henry answered. “There is one thing, however, that is not. The Chu clan lives at the mercy of the remnants of Xingese tradition. For generations, the country's childish contempt for my clan was restrained by the efforts of the Xingese emperors to ensure the survival of each Family. Now that the 50 Families system has been disestablished, this contempt is now resurfacing in various ways including the pilfering of our ancestral lands and the eradication of our culture – which wouldn't be so bad if we didn't continue to be ostracized even when we ingratiated ourselves.

“I'll tell you what would happen when you sign the Free Trade Agreement, President Grumman,” Henry continued. “The Chu clan would be forced out of their homelands, their forests auctioned away to the most competitive businesses – Xingese _and_ Amestrian. Without the ownership of their lands, many would be forced to encroach on the territories of neighbouring clans, where they would be subjected to the lowest, most undesirable ways of life. The dispersion and subjugation would end my clan as I know it.”

Grumman shrugged. “The Chu clan has a population of less than 2,000. You would prioritize them over the millions who need help in both Amestris and Xing?”

“I'm a businessman, not a politician.”

“And I suppose that means you came here to bargain,” Grumman said, stroking his beard.

Henry smiled, and pulled out a small 1 Terabyte hard drive from his bag, and extended it towards Grumman.

“We both know that the black-markets have infested the underground districts of the entire country this past few years. I've been collecting vital information on many of the largest network, from their most influential leaders to their operational strategies. I've compiled some teaser data in here. You can have it, and do with the information as you want. And if you want the rest, decline the Free Trade policy.”

Grumman took the black box and inspected it in his hands. For someone who had just received a key to untangling his economy from leeches, Grumman looked underwhelmed. Henry let the observation slide, knowing that his biggest offer was still to come.

“I'm not convinced,” Grumman said. “With better incentives and opportunities provided by the Free Trade, many of the people involved in the black-markets will exit them anyway.”

“Fair enough,” Henry answered. “If crucial black-market data is not enough for you, how about stopping a war?”

Hearing this, Grumman looked slightly taken aback.

“You don't mean the Aerugan war, do you? That has already ended. We're just drafting the final version of the treaty.”

“No, I don't mean that war. Another war. A potential one, if you do happen to ignore my advice and sign the agreement with the Xingese Trade Ambassador.”

Grumman studied him for several long moments. Finally, he said, “You plan to start a war? As blackmail?”

“Somewhere in Xing right now, there are four caravans of Amestrians. Due to... unfortunate circumstances, these Amestrians have found themselves ill with the Cretan plague, then boarded onto tight, uncomfortable trucks, driven across the continent to unknown parts in Xing where they would be released tonight. I doubt the Xingese officials would find these infectious loiterers very flattering, especially since you had sweet-talked them so efficiently into an economic alliance.

“But when they find the hoard of contagious Amestrians wandering their lands, I assure you that the Xingese government will not be amused. Take my word for it, Mr. President. They will accuse you of starting biological warfare, and is Amestris really ready for that? You're already crippled from the Aerugan war and Bradley's disastrous reign.”

Grumman snorted. “Why don't I just have you captured now, and force a confession out of you so that Xing will know who the culprit really is? I'm sure they'll be ecstatic to find their dethroned prince risking the lives of his fellow citizens.”

“Because if my men don't hear from me personally by the end of the day, the infected Amestrians would be released by default.”

It was then that Grumman's face darkened, and when he spoke next, vehemence was evident in his voice. “How about I send you to the interrogation centre right this moment, where you will tell me exactly where those caravans are, and I can have you sentenced for war conspiracy and attempted mass murder?”

“I don't know where they are. Honestly. You can torture me till the end of the month, and I would not have a single piece of information for you. My men were specifically instructed to find a place that suits them. How about you just agree to my request, and I can stop the release of the human weapons _and_ provide you with the cure for them?” Henry countered. When Grumman frowned, he added, “Yes, a cure. A real cure for the Cretan plague. You can cure the Amestrians in the caravans, you can cure those who would get infected by accident during the rescue, you can even cure yourself. I can give this medicine to you, but _only_ if you avoid signing the agreement.”

Realization dawned on Grumman's face. “The Red Stone!” Then his wide eyes narrowed into angry slits and his wrinkly face reddened with indignation. “You mean to say that you have purposely infected those people, knowing that you can lord the cure over my head? You are sick, Chu! This is sick!”

“I'm not sick,” Henry shrugged. “And if you choose wisely, your people no longer need to be sick either. Only I can provide you with the Red Stones, and you know that. Nobody else knows how to make it. Nobody knows where I've hidden my stash, and even if they did, nobody would willingly go there.”

Grumman fumed wordlessly, staring at him with heated eyes. The luggage was now long forgotten, his countdown to the meeting now ignored. After a long stretch of silence, he looked away, out through the window of his hotel room. Then, having seemingly made up his mind, he turned back around to Henry and said in a firm voice.

“I'll make you a counter-offer.”

Henry raised an eyebrow. He knew that Grumman might want to bargain, but he was amused that the president had something valuable enough to counter the conditions that Henry gave.

“I will sign the Free Trade policy,” Grumman stated in a steady voice. “Unfortunately, you wouldn't have a say in that, so I just want to lay down that fact. But here's the deal. You order your men to drive those caravans back into the country and to the Amestrian Quarantine Facility. Then you will give me the Red Stones. In exchange, I will not destroy XYZ Ltd.”

Henry paused. It was not the first time someone had threatened to bring down his company, and really, he heard the threat often enough that he usually just brushed it off and laughed at it. But President Grumman had just been threatened with the murder of his people and the risk of war; he would not brandish this familiar comeback if he knew it didn't have any weight.

“I received access to the collaterals of one hundred of your biggest clients, and I only have to give my word for these collaterals to be released back to them. Without the collateral, they are no longer obligated to pay back their loans. To ensure you don't do something stupid, I will also issue warrants to annul your contract with them. You know that I can do it. The government has grounds to nullify your contracts, considering the kind of seedy things you ask for. The only reason we had not officially criminalized your business is because there are those in the government who find you useful.”

“Strange words, considering you were one of them only a few years ago when you wanted to put your senile rump on the highest seat in the office,” Henry shot back.

“Well, I suppose you want me to thank you for not siding with the faction that would destroy this country,” Grumman said. “But my gratitude does not take the form of turning the other cheek.”

“Only when it's convenient, right?”

“Only when it's the lesser evil, and let me tell you, Henry Chu. The list of evils lesser than you is growing longer every day.” Grumman continued his tirade, “You know that your biggest clients are whales, and you rely on them for a steady flow of profit. Without them and their obligations, your company would suffer inexplicably. Now you're the one who can make a choice here: try to start a war and lose the majority of the money you need to help your own clan amidst the chaos you create; or you can forgo the war, accept the free-trade policy and continue to have the means to help your clan should they need it.”

Henry narrowed his eyes. This seemed all too convenient. How could Grumman have prepared this kind of rebuttal when he'd just heard Henry's offer? Unless he'd known about Henry's plans? But that couldn't be... if the President had heard about the Amestrians exposed to the plague, he would have come up with a more strategic plan than just making grabs for Henry's collaterals. He would have tried to save his people and prevented them from going out of the border. And besides, Grumman seemed genuinely upset upon hearing the news of the human cargo.

“You're bluffing,” Henry confidently concluded.

“Am I?” Grumman walked behind the table, and opened up the drawer and pulled out a small leather box. He opened it and showed Henry the content.

“This is the master key to the multimillion sens home of the CEO of Amestris HydroPower Corporation. It was the collateral you two had agreed upon when his company was going under, and you decided to play the hero. I can gladly return this to him and I know he would welcome it back.”

Henry tried not to frown. It could be a forgery. Keys were easy to copy. Henry had kept the master key in one of the safest storages he used to keep his collaterals. And as far as he knew, his storages were all in order.

“I know what you're thinking,” Grumman said. “That this is not the real one.” From the drawer, he pulled out a second item, a picture of a young family. The date at the corner of the photograph was set to the previous day, the timestamp indicating that the picture had been taken almost at midnight. The mother and father were embracing a young boy.

“Do you remember the Lee family? The father is a scientist, and his research project is important to the institution he works for. But they didn't have enough funds so they came to you. You had collected his house, his car and almost everything else he owned as collaterals over the years. A few months ago, when they needed just a bit more funding to push them over the finishing line of the project, he didn't have any other asset to collateralize so you took his son.

“I sent the young boy back to his parents last night. I told them not to worry about the money. How much was it again? Pushing two hundred million sens, wasn't it? Fueling innovations in engineering isn't a cheap venture after all.”

Henry stared at the photograph, trying to wrap his head around the angle that Grumman was taking. “Why would you release my collaterals?” he demanded.

“I've only done so to a couple,” Grumman admitted. “But did you honestly expect me to be a sitting duck when you decided to corner me? I needed leverage.”

So Grumman had known that Henry would approach him today. Henry could almost laugh. It was quite smart in a way. “How did you manage to do it, Grumman? Those collaterals are monitored very, very closely.”

“Well, as much as I'd like to take credit for this brilliant plan, I do have my humility to think about. It wasn't me, you see.”

From the side of the room that led to the bed chamber, the door slid open. Upon seeing the person who came out, Henry recognized immediately the tell-tale signatures written across Grumman's threat.

“Ling,” Henry said. “I should have known.”

-o-

“Well, well, this is the closest you've gotten, haven't you, my son?” Ling's father asked, his tense posture melting into nonchalance. “I didn't think you'd involve the president in your little game, which makes me think you're actually learning from your previous mistakes. Let's be honest. Your first two attempts didn't exactly get you anywhere.”

Ling never intended for his plans to involve the President of Amestris. His little schemes had always been exactly that – little. He had always aimed for something small and powerful, hoping that a tiny crack in his father's empire would bring the entire thing down. But in hindsight, perhaps that was exactly the reason why he'd never succeeded before. His moves were just too insignificant.

As a matter of fact, if Auto-Mail hadn't discovered that President Grumman would be a lynchpin in his father's plans, Ling doubted he would have involved the president on purpose.

Ling squared his shoulders. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his father face-to-face. If anything, his abhorrence for the man caused Ling to frown upon his memories with distaste, resenting the fact that they were related. Ling counted it as his good fortune that he'd been too young when his father decided to leave his mother; he didn't know what kind of twisted person he would be had his father stayed long enough to influence him, or what kind of suffering he and his mother would have to further endure if Chu didn't leave as early as he did.

Most of his spy work and his last two operations didn't involve actually meeting Chu. Yet now, here they were, and Ling had to muster all his strength to bear the anger, frustration and fear that Chu was evoking. Here was the man who put Lan Fan and Fu through weeks of torture. The thought of it still made Ling ill. And it wasn't just Lan Fan and her grandfather; she'd said there had been many victims. And now, this same man had forced truckloads of humans to be fatal weapons as a bargaining chip.

Ling inhaled deeply, and when he let his breath go, his voice was steady. “Take Grumman's deal, Henry Chu.”

His father stared back at him, his face calm and calculating. He slid his hands into his pockets and paced the room quietly, almost as if he owned the place.

“I don't know why it's so difficult for you to make up your mind,” Ling continued. “The release of those one hundred collaterals would cripple you. If you really cared so much about the Chu clan, why start a war when you know you risk harming them too?”

“I'm not convinced,” Chu answered him at length. “When Xing declares war on Amestris, I'm sure there would be plenty of people who would be desperate enough to come to me. I'm sure you, Mr. President, know that it's more than likely to happen. So really, not much harm done even if I lose my collaterals.”

Ling paused, trying to think of how to convince his father to return the infected Amestrians back into the country. Winry and Ed, as well as everyone in Auto-Mail that was involved in this fiasco, had worked tremendously hard to be able to locate and possess Chu's collaterals without him knowing. Ling had known that The Collateral was the pillar of every single one of Chu's deals. It was what made XYZ Ltd. the company it was, what made it so formidable. At the same time, to take it away would be to disintegrate the agreement between loaner and client.

Now Chu didn't even seem to mind if he lost them.

_Get a grip_ , Ling told himself. He'd tracked his father's movements for years, as well as his plans and strategies. And there had always been one constant in the flurry of strikes and comebacks. XYZ Ltd. had always been the priority. His father would never jeopardize the condition of his company. And that meant that Chu was just bluffing his way through. Ling had to remain steadfast and not fall for it.

“I wouldn't be so sure if I were you,” he managed to say. “If a war breaks out between Xing and Amestris, nobody would want to go to you. Everyone will think you're working for the other side.”

His father shrugged. “We'll have to see, won't we?”

“Maybe we won't,” Ling added. “Maybe King Xiao won't believe that the country that has treated his like a true ally these past few years would suddenly unleash human weapons. Do you really believe that we cannot find a way to pin it all on you? Do you honestly think you're so above the law and the truth that Xiao won't believe us when we tell him everything you have just told us?” Ling laughed. “Don't be absurd! Xiao hates you and is good friends with Grumman. He will not doubt that you are behind all of the chaos.”

Chu stared back at him, his expression impenetrable. Ling knew that he was gaining an upper hand. When his father had an advantage, he rarely ever missed the chance to let his opponent know – whether it manifested as cruel barbs or a small snicker and smirk. But a poker face. That meant his father's mind was racing with possibilities, unsure of whether the odds would fall to his favour.

Slowly, Ling pulled his phone out of his pocket, and sent a quick message to Winry to discharge the next twenty collaterals.

“Alright,” Ling said. “You have seventy-eight more collaterals you can salvage.”

Chu narrowed his eyes. His gaze trailed Ling's phone as he pocketed the gadget again.

“Don't believe me?” Ling asked. He then proceeded to list exactly which twenty he asked to be released, the original owners of those collaterals, the amount of money the owners had loaned from Chu, and when and how Auto-Mail was able to pilfer access to them. Throughout his explanation, Ling watched as Chu's face became stonier and stonier, hardening to desperately hide his displeasure. “Now, like President Grumman said, you have a choice. But let's reframe the situation now. You can wager your luck on hoping that King Xiao would declare war upon his discovery of those poor infected Amestrians, while your precious company bleeds out its lifeblood. Or you can tell your men to bring those ill Amestrians back, you can tell the President where the Red Stones are hiding, and you can still save your company.”

Ling waited for his father's reply. There was an infinite stretch of silence that followed his threat, where the only thing Ling could hear was the heavy beating of his heart. Part of him wished Lan Fan was beside him, but another part of him knew that it would have been a bad idea. She would be enraged at the site of Chu, and Chu would only provoke her.

Beside him, Grumman appeared calm but expectant.

Finally, Chu exhaled.

“I want the remaining collaterals returned to me immediately,” he stated, and Ling could hardly believe his ears. His father was accepting their offer. “And I want the government to reimburse a certain percentage of the money I lost from the loans you've ruined.”

“I accept,” Grumman stated.

“And I want full immunity.”

Grumman rubbed his chin, thinking deeply about that one. “Immunity from the fact that you almost instigated a war, blackmailed the President, and infected your fellow citizens with a fatal plague?”

Chu nodded. “Full immunity from anything and everything you have just heard from the past hour.”

“Done.”

With heated anticipation, Ling watched as Henry Chu called his men and ordered them to send back the cargos to Amestris, and that those inside were not to be let out under all circumstances. Before he finished, Grumman instructed him to ask where each of the cargos presently were in Xing, and after the call ended, he asked for Chu's phone, which Chu reluctantly handed over.

When the president had secured the phone in his own pocket, Ling positioned himself away from Chu and away from the window on the farthest side of the room.

It was then that the glass of the window exploded into a thousand shards, and the carpeted floor beside Grumman's feet was violently riddled with successive gunshots. The ledge of the heavy desk behind him splintered into pieces as bullets peppered the sturdy oak.

Ling watched the scene play out with alert steadiness, and Grumman looked serene for someone who was only a few inches away from some of the bullets.

His father on the other hand had cowered behind one of the leather seats, arms shielding his head.

When the gunshots have stopped, he looked up at them with a bewildered expression.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded. “If you're thinking of trying to kill me, you better hire a different gunman!”

The door banged open, and Colonel Mustang, along with Breda, Falman and Havoc, came in bearing guns all pointing in Chu's direction.

“Henry Chu, you are under arrest for attempted murder of President Grumman!” Mustang exclaimed.

Chu looked at them with utter bafflement. His eyes roamed the room where the bullets have lodged. He locked gazes with Grumman for a brief moment, and then settled on Ling.

Ling turned towards the window. There was only one building beyond the hotel, and on the rooftop, he could get a small glimpse of the blonde head of the sniper. Chu had followed his gaze, and upon discovering that the marksman was wearing the Amestrian State Military uniform, he began to put the pieces together.

“You're framing me,” he stated.

“You didn't think we'd just let you go, did you?” Ling asked.

“You told the President that you wanted immunity from everything that you've said before,” the Colonel remarked. “And true to his words, he pardoned you for that. But you'd be a fool to think we're just going to pretend that nothing happened.”

The Colonel approached Chu, and with some struggling, he managed to shackle him with cuffs. Ling expected his father to perhaps put up a fight, go all Xingese-warrior-prince on Mustang, but he didn't. His face was a blatant display of fury, but as he was being led out of the room, he actually smiled at Ling.

“In some odd ways,” he called out as Mustang and the rest escorted him. “I'm actually proud to call you my son.”

Ling felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and he almost tossed his breakfast.

He looked back out the window where he found Riza gathering her things from the rooftop. She'd been assigned the very task of shooting close to the president so that they could frame Ling's father for attempted murder. It was actually Mustang's idea. He had a hunch that it was going to take a lot of strategic coaxing to get Henry Chu to the police station. He would never have gone willingly, and he would have tried his hardest to bargain for his freedom. This frame-up scenario enabled them to strike a convincing deal with Chu under the pretense that they were being fair, and then arrest him under different circumstances.

Ling let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. It seemed as if everything was working out, especially since they woke up that morning not knowing what Chu would even ask of them. But he knew that he couldn't get his hopes up this early in the game.

And his father's last statement clang to his skin like the murky waters of the sewer where he and Lan Fan first met.

-o-

Lan Fan heard that Chu had been taken to the precinct and was currently under heavy interrogation. Some part of her hoped that he would get hurt, but a soft yet insistent feeling told her that it was not a good thing to wish for. She remembered herself suffering under his hands, and wondered whether it was fair to wish that kind of treatment on another human being, even if said human being had been the cause of her suffering.

Beside her, Ling was antsy. They were all waiting to hear back from the squad of militants who have been deployed to meet Chu's men in Xing and reinforce the protection of Amestrians, both inside and outside of the caravans. Everyone was up to their ears with nerves and impatience, but Ling seemed disconsolate with something else. His head was buried in his hands, and he was slumped against the bench beside her.

Lan Fan slung an arm around his shoulder.

“Ling?” she whispered. “Ling, are you okay? What's wrong?” Lan Fan felt bad that she hadn't been given a significant role in Operation Greed 3.0. She'd been in the hotel, but mostly she waited with the Colonel and his men. She was an emergency manpower, tasked with pursuing Chu should he get away. He didn't. She knew it was better that way, but seeing Ling appear so somber, she wondered if there had been anything she could have contributed in that room.

Ling lifted his head and laid it against the wall.

“My father said he was proud of me,” he answered her.

Oh.

Lan Fan didn't quite know what to say after that.

Ling continued, “I've finally outwitted him, and yet... it doesn't feel like the victory I thought it would be.”

She rubbed his back. “He probably only said that to throw you off guard. What can I say? The man sure knows where to hit. Don't let him get to you.”

“I don't know, I just...”

“Ling,” Lan Fan said sternly. “You have not hurt anybody. Not intentionally anyway. I know you're thinking about the people who have been inadvertently involved and harmed by your decisions. But Chu would purposely hurt anyone who gets in his way, and not show one drop of remorse. My grandfather once told me that you can tell much more about a person's character not by the actions that they do, but by the reasons they do them. If you think you're becoming like your father, I would disagree. By a long shot.”

Ling smiled at her wryly. “Thanks,” he told her.

“To be honest,” Lan Fan said. “I'm kind of nervous too. You said that your father didn't put up much of a fight when Colonel Mustang tried to cuff him?”

Ling nodded.

“That's strange,” she continued. “Chu never goes along without struggling. I've had him cornered a few times before, and he's always fought his best against me.”

“There were six other people in the room,” Ling reminded her. “And Lieutenant Hawkeye was stationed right outside where she has a clear aim. Maybe he thought any kind of struggle would be futile.”

Lan Fan thought about it for a minute, but the discomfort she felt didn't vanish and it told her one thing. When she looked back at Ling, she could tell that he was about to conclude something similar: there were no _maybes_ when it came to Chu.

Ling swore under his breath. “We should warn the Colonel. They're interrogating him right now. Maybe they could figure out what he's hiding up his sleeve –”

He was interrupted by his phone vibrating, and he shot Lan Fan a look saturated with a sense of impending doom. When he read the message he received, his look only worsened. Lan Fan felt her heart hammer in her chest.

“Winry had received tips from her Auto-Mail informants based in Xing that several people dressed as Amestrian State Militants were seen depositing ill people in cities in the western provinces.” Ling buried his head in his hands and began to chant a series of expletives.

“Wait, Ling!” she grabbed him by the shoulder. “I thought you said your father called it off. You _made_ him call it off!”

“He must have been lying! Isn't it clear?” Ling got up and kicked the bench they were sitting on. Several people in the hotel lobby looked their way, but Lan Fan didn't have the energy or the attention to care. Ling grabbed her hand tightly and stormed out of the hotel. “I don't know what he did,” he told her along the way. “Maybe it wasn't a real phone call. Maybe he had given specific orders to his men to continue with their plan no matter what. I don't know! But we have dozens of people out there infected with one of the deadliest and most contagious illnesses that has ever swept the face of this continent in the last century, and they have infiltrated _cities_. Dammit!” he swore again.

“Winry should forward this information to the Colonel,” Lan Fan said, her mind racing to try and make sense of their situation. She tried to avoid trains of thoughts that wondered how they could have been so careless _again_ , and that maybe she was an ill omen of some kind that brought disaster to every single one of Ling's plans.

“She already did. The State Militants they sent still have yet to finish crossing the desert. By that time, hundreds of people would have succumbed to the plague already!”

“How quickly do you think Xing can organize a quarantine?” Lan Fan asked.

“They're efficient, but it would still be too late. Hundreds of people might still die.” Ling paced back and forth, showing full well how affected he was by feelings of indecision and helplessness.

“Ling...”

“They're dressed as State militants!” he spat. “No wonder my father was sure that Xing would declare a war.”

“Don't think about that right now,” Lan Fan told him – and to a certain extent, herself as well – as she took a deep, calming breath. “Remember how influential President Grumman is. Let's focus on what we can do. At least with the outbreak, we already know where we need to mobilize our resources, right? That's one of the most crucial information that Chu had withheld from us, when he claimed he didn't know where his men are. Well now we do. Part of the deal that President Grumman had struck with Chu is that he must give us access to the Red Stones, so all we have to do is get the medicine and give it to the people.”

Ling stopped dead in his tracks.

“Yes, the Red Stones. You're right.” He immediately flashed his phone out again.

“Are you going to ask the Colonel to make your father spit out where he's keeping them?”

“No,” Ling answered. “I'm sure the Colonel is doing that as we speak. As for us, we're going to Resembool and meet up with Winry and Ed. We're going to try and get the Red Stones ourselves, once the Colonel has confirmed the location of the stones. If there's anyone who can find the best route, it would be Auto-Mail.”

Youswell wasn't that far from Winry and the Elrics' childhood home. It only took more than half an hour by bullet train. When they were walking along the browned pastures of the Resembool fields, Ling received a message from Fuery indicating that Colonel Mustang had made some headway with his father.

“The Red Stones are in Creta,” Ling informed her in a tight voice, just as they entered the Rockbells' Auto-Mail abode. They found Winry and Edward firing away missives to various people on the network.

“Did you receive Roy's new message?” Ed asked them when they came in.

“Ed! Don't call the Colonel by his first name!” Winry said, though Lan Fan was surprised to see she was still able to notice and call out Ed's brusqueness, considering her fingers were like a hurricane on her keyboard. “It's rude!”

“Bah!” Ed rolled his eyes. There was a tension in him that mirrored everyone else's mood.

“Yes, we did. It's in _Creta_ , of all places!” Ling moaned. “The place that's still infested with the plague!”

Ed nodded. “But that's as far as Roy's gotten. We don't know where in Creta he hid it. Chu's playing coy, obviously displeased that we've framed him. Why didn't you ask him where the medicine is before the Lieutenant went all Amestrian Sniper on him?”

Ling shrugged. “I don't think it would have mattered in retrospect. He could have just lied like he did when he apparently ordered his men to take back the human cargo.”

“Well, good thing you have me!” Winry exclaimed. “You see, I received a service request some weeks ago from a woman whose husband needed passage through the Cretan border. The great big mystery is that she didn't know how he ended up there, but he called her and asked her to arrange for him to be smuggled back. He related that he's been coerced to deliver a package to an abandoned site near the border. He was one among dozens of others. It was there that everyone was killed after drinking some refreshments offered by the man who had led them, although he managed to escape. Sounds fishy, right?”

“Did he identify the leader as Chu?” Ed asked.

Winry shook her head. “No, but I wouldn't be surprised. Sometimes people find themselves working for that sleazy man without recognizing him. Especially when the situation is abrupt and they are threatened. It's happened before.”

She opened up a document outlining the service request for Auto-Mail. She retrieved the contact information and called the client. While she talked, she wrote down notes on a pad, and then showed it to them once she finished the phone call.

“These are the rough guidelines that the man remembered from his journey there. He's in the Quarantine Facility now so he won't be much help to us other than this.”

“But this is still a big problem!” Ed reminded them. “Yes, suppose that we can smuggle someone across the border; that's never been a problem with Auto-Mail. But _who_ would willingly go to Creta where the chances of catching the plague are still relatively high? I mean, I'm sure it's not the same hell-hole it was before, but you have to admit, there's still some risk.”

“Well, wouldn't it be any consolation that whoever this person is would also retrieve the medicine? That sort of mitigates the risk a little,” Ling answered. “They can just cure themselves.”

In a fit of impulsiveness, Lan Fan volunteered. “I'll do it!”

They all looked at her.

“Medicine or no, I think I should be the one to go,” she explained. “When Chu had experimented with the Red Stones on Grandpa and me... the Cretan plague was one of the maladies he tested.” She paused before admitting, “I'm immune to it now. I mean, I'm really not sure how it happened or why; I've said before that the Red Stone wasn't that stable when it came to curing illnesses. Sometimes it doesn't work so well, and other times it goes overboard. But in my case... I guess I turned out lucky.”

Ling frowned at her. “Are you certain about this?”

“The doctors who were with me performed several iterations of the plague. After a while, I stopped getting sick from it.” Lan Fan had remembered that period of time particularly well, because Chu had been very, very pleased when he had heard that the developments on the Red Stone enabled it to cure the epidemic. “Look, what I'm certain about is that asking someone else to take the Red Stones from Creta would be inhumane when you already have me,” Lan Fan said seriously. “Now you can risk someone's health and bet that the Red Stone would have no side effects on them like it did on my Grandpa. Or you can send me, and I will assure you that I'll be okay.”

She watched as the three friends glanced at one another. Finally, Winry nodded.

“Okay,” she handed Lan Fan the note pad. “Here are the directions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAH, you guys have no idea how difficult it was to get through this chapter. It was hard for several reasons. One is that I've finally moved, so lots of interruptions and lots of changes in my routine. For the past few weeks it's been difficult for me to find the time to write. My commute is now 3 hours a day, bordering on 4 sometimes. *sigh*
> 
> Another reason is that there's just too many political maneuvering in this chapter. Too many chess moves. It made my head ache. If it's confusing to you guys, let me know. Chances are, I'm as confused as you, lol. But I'll try my best to explain what I wanted to achieve. (The problem is exacerbated by the fact that on my outline, Part 3 of the story was just this monolithic thing, so I didn't know how to split it all up into chapters.) On a related note, this chapter is filled with dialogue. Every move being made is through words, not actions, so I had to make sure everyone said the right things. 
> 
> That said, the next 2 chapters would be action-filled as opposed to talk, talk, talk. I'm actually so relieved to have gotten over this chapter because the real excitement begins after this. I'm excited because I've been waiting to write a LingFan kiss for some time now, and it's gonna happen soon, yay! And it's gonna happen when it's least expected, which is even better, yay! Hehe.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. My. It's Chapter 13. I can't believe this! I have never been so persistent in my writing in the past 10 years. All I have to say is thank you for the continued interest and support, guys! You're the reason why I'm able to do this.
> 
> Belated Merry Christmas!

**Chapter 13**

Lan Fan had never been to the Cretan border. The rugged terrain of the canyon made her nervous, and the narrow path cutting through the high, rouge walls of sediment did not give her an extensive view of her surroundings, additionally causing her to feel claustrophobic and edgy. Winry had warned her that there were loose groups of bandits that patrolled the border, knowing that they had an off-chance of catching smugglers. Lan Fan was still in the Amestris side of the canyon, but she gripped the belt containing a few thousand sens that she had wrapped around her waist beneath her shirt. It was the remaining money from the stash that Paninya had found several weeks ago, the one that Manos had apparently saved for himself. The rest of the money had gone into funding Auto-Mail's work on finding the collaterals they could use to threaten Henry Chu.

Lan Fan hoped that the money would be enough to bribe some of the bandits to leave her alone, should she encounter any. Winry assured her that as soon as she crossed the border, there would be someone waiting to help her manage the canyon on the Cretan side; this person was one of the hired guides who helped Auto-Mail smuggle clients in or out of the country.

She sighed, looking up at the sliver of darkening blue sky. It took her a few hours to get from Resembool to the south-western side of the country where she could follow the same path that Chu and his men had taken into Creta. Winry had packed her off with enough food for a few days. Once she was able to retrieve the stones, she and her guide would be riding across the Cretan country near the border until they reached the broader pass at the south side of Amestris. That pass was wide enough for them to be able to ride a vehicle through it. Not like the canyon she was currently traversing.

Lan Fan slipped her hand in the pocket of the leather jacket that Ling had given her just a few days before. Ling must already be well on his way to Xing now. He had wanted to come with her. And the small, scared part of her almost wanted him to go too, but she knew she would never risk his health for this. Fortunately, before they could begin to argue about it, the Colonel had called them and requested Ling to accompany an Amestrian representative to Xing. The King had demanded an explanation for the three cities presently erupting with the Cretan plague. President Grumman instructed for Ling to go since he was the only one who had been at the meeting with Chu and could spare the time to meet with the King. Grumman also hoped that Ling's dual citizenship would appease the monarch's worries somewhat and make him less likely to doubt their explanation.

She lifted the collar of the jacket, protecting her neck from the growing cold. She forced her feet to move faster, despite the sharpness of the rocks scattered across the ground. There were people who could be dying from the plague right this moment – she couldn't afford to let her thoughts and hesitance bog her down.

Lan Fan spent almost the next hour trudging through the growing darkness, senses straining from the effort of running across the difficult path while keeping herself alert enough should anyone be waiting to attack her. Despite the dropping temperature, she soon began to sweat beneath her jacket. She slowed to a brisk walk when a rather voluminous cloud began to block the light of the moon, and the path in front of her sunk among the shadows. She tensed when a few loose pebbles cascaded from one of the canyon's walls to land directly onto her shoulder.

_Something up there_?

She looked up, squinting and straining to see anything in the dark. A movement caught her periphery, and Lan Fan braced herself for company. Something – or rather, _someone_ – jumped from somewhere high above and landed right in front of her.

Lan Fan blinked when she recognized the person's features even within the shadows.

"Paninya?"

"Hey, took you long enough!" the girl waved a hand. She looked back up on the wall, and whistled. Moments later, a second person dropped from an outcropping that Lan Fan's eyes had missed before when she hadn't known where to look.

The second person was a short, stocky man, wearing camping gear. He gave her a brief nod.

Paninya said, "This is our guide."

"Our?" Lan Fan quirked an eyebrow. "You're coming with me?"

"Isn't there supposed to be a ton's worth of you-know-what where we're going?"

"Huh," Lan Fan narrowed her eyes playfully. "How come you only show up whenever Auto-Mail has large values at stake, hmm?"

"That is not what I meant!" Paninya exclaimed, loud enough that Lan Fan worried that she might have just alerted any wandering bandits to their location. "How are you supposed to carry all those things? I know you think of yourself as a one-handed Superwoman, and I would rarely disagree, but for pragmatism's sake, let's admit you'd need an extra hand or two – literally – to help you out this time!"

She then leaned in closer to Lan Fan and dropped her voice. "Look, buddy over there is a commissioner. Auto-Mail pays him whenever we need to do some sketchy things here at the border, but guides rarely get involved in Auto-Mail missions. He doesn't know what we have to do or why, and he doesn't particularly care. It's simpler to keep the guides a little disconnected so they don't get into trouble. That means you and I are the only ones who must handle the Red Stones, got it?"

"Did Winry send you here?" Lan Fan asked, and the other girl nodded.

"Right after Ling was called off."

Paninya was about to give the guide the signal to begin moving along, when Lan Fan stopped her. "Hey, you know you might get sick, right?"

Paninya shrugged. "We're fetching the cure, so I'm not too worried. Besides, there's a slim chance I might not get it." She pointed to the guide. "There are people like him after all. If everyone who'd been in contact with the virus did not survive, I'm pretty sure Creta would be a ghost country by now. But a significant percentage of the population is still alive."

"Are they?" Lan Fan asked. Since the blockade that President Bradley implemented, very few people have heard news from within Creta. She wouldn't be surprised to hear if Auto-Mail knew a bit more though.

"Last time I heard," Paninya answered.

The guide led them down the same path for several more minutes, before sharply cutting to the right, where through one of the canyon walls hid a second route. He opened a big flashlight to light up the hidden walkway.

"There is a shortcut here that will lead us to the same place as you want to go," he explained. "The good thing about being within the walls of the canyon is that it's something the roaming bandits rarely brave, so we'll have a safer time in here than out there."

They continued their track for hours, it seemed to Lan Fan, until the guide reached a round, open space that seemed to resemble a low cave. There, he unpacked his bag and distributed a meager set of sleeping materials: blankets for each of them and a wash towel. He mentioned that there is a small, trapped body of water some ways down where they could wash if they wanted to. He also had a bit of food, and Lan Fan shared with them the food Winry had given her before she'd left for her journey. After washing up and filling their stomachs, they settled in for the night.

In the dark, Lan Fan felt hollow. She tried her best to keep her anxieties at bay; what she was left with was an emptiness she didn't know what to do with, but one she particularly preferred this moment. Thoughts of Ling flitted through her mind, and she felt a pang of guilt for the current condition of the operation, even though she knew that Ling would never blame her for what happened. If anything, he would be blaming himself.

Lan Fan shifted beneath her blankets, hand reaching for her small pack beside her. From one of the pockets, she pulled out her smart phone. It was yet another thing that her new last name afforded her. Gone was the old-fashioned flip phone she'd used for so long. Ling had reassured her that smart phones weren't that expensive in Xing, considering that many companies manufactured no-name brand gadgets, unlike Amestris where only a handful of companies held an oligarchy in the smart phone industry. She had stopped receiving signal hours before, and she had turned the phone off to stop it from using up the battery. She wouldn't have a chance to recharge it if it ran out in this in-between place, far from urban facilities. But now, she switched it on.

Her screen saver was a picture of her and Ling smiling on the bridge in the garden at the Yao compound. Ms. Yuna had insisted they take a picture to send to her while she was freezing away in Drachma. Ling had taken several enthusiastic shots of them both, all of them way too awkward for Lan Fan's liking, but Ms. Yuna loved them, and now Lan Fan looked back at the embarrassing time quite fondly. Ling's mother had told her she would add the pictures in their family album, and that simple comment had made Lan Fan's heart flutter with an indescribable kind of joy and disbelief. After all, it wasn't like she'd been without family – she had her grandfather, and she always did.

Still, having someone not of her flesh and blood treat her the way Ling and his mother did... it elated her and scared her at the same time.

-o-

Of all the places King Xiao had to be at this time of the year, it just had to be in the Liu province. The province was small enough that it didn't bother with an airport, and the nearest one was a two hour cab ride away. Ling didn't know if this was yet again another sign that the god of luck, whether or not such an entity existed, hated Ling with a passion of a thousand suns. Or perhaps, his own father was just smart enough to deploy one of the infected cargos in the same city that the King was currently visiting, a city that was not easily accessible from Amestris. No wonder King Xiao was panicking.

Ling rubbed his belly, watching the pinkish-orange glow of the sky on the horizon as the car sped down the roadway. The color reminded him of salmon, and salmon reminded him of food – good, steamy fish on rice – and it was all he could do not to let his stomach grumble in protest. He turned to his side. Beside him, the Amestrian ambassador that President Grumman had chosen to send to Xing looked nervous.

"You got any food on you?" Ling asked.

The man looked through his pockets, and then pulled out a sorry looking pack of gum. "This is all I have, kid."

Ling shrugged and pulled one of the sticks from the pack, then popped it into his mouth.

"So, what exactly do we tell the King?"

The ambassador grimaced. "Basically the entire truth. From the reports I've heard from Officer Falman, who keyed me in on the important aspects of your meeting with Henry Chu, it's going to take take some, er... colourful narration to convince the King that this isn't some trade paperback novel."

Ling sunk against the chair, chewing on the gum that was quickly growing bland. "King Xiao knows how petty and bitter my father is. Remember that they once butted heads for the throne. Xiao won. I think if there's anyone who would never underestimate just how much trouble my father can cause, it's the King."

"Well, if you say so," the ambassador said. "I hope you're in good terms with your uncle. The tricky part about politics, I find, is that believability is so tricky to handle. Even if it's believable, you risk making the other party think that you've purposely arranged the situation just to your liking."

"Tell me about it," Ling grumbled. He looked back out the window to watch the sun's rays paint the rice paddies with a tint of gold. In the distance he could finally make out the grayed outline of the city's core, the few modern high rise buildings mingling with the more traditionally built Xingese structures. The driver continued along the packed dirt road in relative speediness until their surroundings turned from rice fields into a small town, and finally into the city proper.

Ling heard a sudden, piercing screech, and before he was able to register the source of the sound, he found himself jerked violently against his seatbelt, his momentum throwing his body against the constraints of the vinyl strip as their car struggled to brake in time. He heard, more than saw, the ugly crash of a vehicle somewhere ahead to the right, and when he opened the eyes he didn't know he'd closed, he found himself disoriented and confused.

Rushing past their car were dozens of panicking people. In front of them, the view was obstructed by dark, oily clouds of smoke emanating from the car that had crashed moments earlier.

It was then that Ling registered that the area was in a state of utter mayhem. It wasn't just the one car in front of them; everyone in the vicinity seemed to be possessed by a chaotic sense of urgency. There were abandoned vehicles ahead of the traffic in front of them, and many more were being left behind by drivers and passengers who were all rushing away in the opposite direction.

Ling unclasped the seatbelt, and exited the car, peering through the chaos to try to understand the situation. The ambassador followed his lead, moving towards the car that had crashed earlier to try and help those stuck inside. Ling tried to move against the flow of people to see what was happening ahead.

At the next intersection, he found the source of the commotion.

A large, upturned truck lay in the middle of the intersection of the two roads. The back of the truck had been opened wide, and there were some people who lay lifelessly inside and some who were struggling to get out.

Then it hit him.

It was one of the human cargoes that his father had sent. It was sitting right here, uncontained and exposed.

He should have been more attentive. He realized belatedly that everyone he'd passed had been covering their noses and mouth with handkerchiefs, scarves or the collars of their shirts. He pulled up his own scarf to cover the lower part of his face. He ran back to their car and approached the ambassador, who successfully managed to pull out the injured driver from the crash.

"Cover your face!" Ling instructed him. "The cargo is just down the street. The quarantine hasn't been implemented."

"It failed?" the ambassador asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it did, because I can't imagine the city officials delaying it especially if the King is in the city. We must take a detour to the City Hall."

Between him and the ambassador, they hoisted the injured man up and began to walk down the road, away from the intersection. Ling could no longer find the driver of their own car. People jostled against them, trying to get ahead. Ling was confused. It had been hours since the cargoes were released – at least, it had almost been a day since they've heard word that 'Amestrian' militants were assisting infected people into several cities. Why wasn't anyone doing anything about it? The City Hall was only an hour away. And if they had tried to do something, why didn't it work?

A wheezing noise passed overhead, and a second later, an explosion knocked Ling and the ambassador and the injured man to their knees. Ling recovered quickly, looking back to find a fiery destruction consuming the intersection he had inspected only minutes before. Then from somewhere in the distance, he heard cheers. Cheers?

Oh no.

No, no, no.

There were vigilantes trying to kill the people in the truck.

"Ambassador," Ling called to him. "Try to escape. Find another way to the City Hall. I will meet you there." And with that, Ling rushed up the street again, trying to reach the intersection.

Once there, he found that the explosion had pretty much missed the truck. The sidewalk, on the other hand, was a pit of debris and soot and destroyed concrete. Ling let out a sigh of relief. From the truck, he saw a young man trying to crawl out, stepping over his unconscious peers, and reaching out a hand. He seemed to be mouthing the word 'help', and Ling shuddered. He almost took a step forward when he remembered that this person was carrying a fatal pathogen. Ling fell back in shame.

He heard yelling off to his left, and found a group of men and women, covered from head to toe. They huddled beside their packs, filled with gears and weapons. Ling watched in fright as one of them lit up the fuse of another explosive and sent it hurtling through the air. Knocking himself out of his stupor, Ling rushed towards where it was heading. He used the piles of debris on the ground to launch himself onto the top of the overturned truck, and luckily managed to swipe the weapon from the air on the correct side so it didn't go off on his hand. With a sharp turn, he threw it far from the truck and towards the abandoned street on the other side.

The explosive went off with a deafening boom that shuddered through the ground. Ling almost fell backwards.

Someone yelled at him, one of the people from the group throwing bombs, but he couldn't understand. His ears were ringing. All he could tell was that they were speaking in Xingese.

"What the hell are you doing? Get away! Get away!" he heard as the ringing in his ears cleared.

"No!" Ling yelled back, pulling his scarf down. "These people are innocent!"

"They will kill us all!" another shot back.

"They never asked for this!" Ling told them. "They don't deserve this. We will have a cure. You don't have to kill – "

Ling was cut off as someone launched a container towards the truck. When it broke beside Ling's feet, liquid spilled out. Gasoline.

A series of expletives filled Ling's head in panic. "Stop it!" he yelled at them again. "You don't understand. These people are victims!"

"If we don't kill them now, they will infect the entire city," a woman shot back. "You want to risk the lives of thousands of people for these dozens?"

"No! But do you think it's right to punish innocent people for something they cannot help?"

"For everyone else's sake, then yes!"

Ling gritted his teeth. These people did not understand. They didn't know the truth, why there were sick Amestrians here, and why they've been released. If they knew, they would be more sympathetic. They would not see these unfortunate people as weapons. Ling told himself that, because he could not fathom how anybody could be so ruthless.

He saw one of them attempt to fire up a broken piece of wood. Ling jumped down from the truck, grabbed the nearest hefty debris he could lift, and threw it towards the guy. His aim struck true, hitting the person square on the chest. The guy fell back with a grunt, the wood dropping to the ground unlit. Ling didn't lose a moment. He sped towards the group, picking up stray rocks and pieces of broken things to throw at the them. He didn't know what kind of insanity seized him; after all, petty rocks and pebbles weren't going to do much good when he was up against half a dozen people who had _guns_ and _grenades._

Still, he couldn't just stand by.

Ling observed one of them readying a rifle. He sent the last of his stones flying towards the man's head, and the guy fell off the platform they were using as a base to launch their weapons. Ling finally reached them by the time someone else was able to make a grab for the rifle, and Ling threw himself against the person, knocking the wooden butt of the weapon against the his face. He heard the cringe-worthy sound of bone breaking, but ignored it as he turned and threw his elbow against the padded torso of the person next to him. The woman grunted, but didn't go down. Ling knocked the flat of his palm up her nose, and she stumbled backwards.

"Hold it!" a voice demanded. Ling paused, hearing the clicks of a gun, and he turned around slowly, arms rising in a pacifying gesture. A man behind him aimed a small gun at Ling's head. Ling heard the loud clap of the gun being triggered, and looked away, bracing himself for the utterly excruciating pain he knew would come with getting his face blown off.

But the pain never came. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and found the man's eyes wide with confusion, before he fainted right in front of Ling. The other men and women in the group looked at each other in befuddlement, before a series of gunshots echoed in succession, and a few more of them dropped to the ground.

"Put your hands in the air!" someone shouted at them, and Ling saw that below the platform, about a block away, Xingese officials had finally come. There were about three dozen of them, suited in a combined combat apparel and protective gear against the plague. Half of them had weapons trained on Ling and the others. Ling raised his hands, and backed away from the vigilantes.

Slowly, those who remained still standing within the group lowered their own weapons. They probably knew their ragtag unit would not fare well against Xingese officials. Several of the officials approached them and began to lead them to the police cars.

When one came up beside him, Ling asked, "What happened? Why did you come only now? I heard that the cargo was released yesterday."

The official quirked one of her eyebrows. "The passengers of the cargo were never released until now. We sent a contingent of cops and paramedics yesterday as soon as we heard word of Amestrian militants – something we've been on a lookout for since the outbreak in the city up in Jiang province. We almost had the situation contained, but several Xingese Families attacked us last night."

" _Xingese_ Families attacked?" Ling was shocked to hear that. Something as important as a government protocol to protect the Xingese people themselves usually appeased the Families.

The woman shrugged. "King Xiao is holding a week-long meeting in the city. Representatives from almost twenty Families have come here. Imagine the outrage when we notified them yesterday that the city is in lock-down. Nobody can enter, nobody can leave. They had relatives trapped in the city, where there was a risk of becoming infected with the contagion.

"We were attacked on three fronts the previous night. It was mayhem. It caused a blow in morale as well... after all, if the so-called 'nobles' could escape the quarantine, why couldn't regular residents of the city? Many took the opportunity to escape. We've only regained control and backup just now. We don't even know how the truck managed to get opened this morning. We're assuming that someone had purposely done it to cause further distraction." She clenched her fists, looking past Ling at the upended truck that was now surrounded by the fully-protected paramedics. "Whoever it is will be charged with crimes against the state!"

She glanced back at him, and as if seeing him for the first time, she asked in a surprised tone, "You're not from here? The news stations had been reporting and updating the situation frequently. Surely, you would have heard about what happened."

Ling shook his head. "No, I'm an emissary. Please, I need to talk with the King! Do you know of a quick way to get to him?"

The woman pursed her lips. "No, that is impossible now. You cannot face him like this. Not when you've been exposed."

A deep tendril of dread slithered inside Ling. "No, you don't understand. He has demanded explanation for this, and I can help clarify the situation."

The woman shook her head and took him by the arm. "You'll be coming with us at the emergency hospital. You can meet with the King either only when the doctors have cleared you, or when this entire fiasco is finished, _or_ if the King agrees to hold a virtual meeting with you, if you are who you say you are."

The last part pacified Ling somewhat, and he didn't resist as the official escorted him to the car. Ling didn't dare mention the Amestrian ambassador he was with; he wished that the ambassador would be able to find a way to get to the city hall and talk with King Xiao. It might take a while for Ling to be released, and he knew that if the King was left without an explanation for long, he might be insulted or might come to the wrong conclusion.

Still, Ling would insist that they allow him to speak with the king even through a webcam, or at this point, even on a phone. That shouldn't be too much to ask, right? But, Ling thought, if he could speak via phone, then the King would not have summoned him to the country. They could have talked in their respective places. He didn't blame the man; during rocky situations like these, long-distance communication was not as safe as face-to-face was.

With the intensity of the past few moments dissipating, Ling found himself able to relax slightly. He began to perceive certain aches in his body that the adrenaline of the fight earlier had masked; his ribs were bruised from the car's abrupt stop, and he realized he'd been nicked in a few places while he was confronting the vigilantes.

Even the rumbling in his stomach had returned. He realized just now that the gum he'd been eating was gone... most likely swallowed – yeesh. And with the hunger resurfacing, Ling soon became aware of the lightheadedness creeping in on him. He stretched out a hand to balance himself, but when he looked down at the ground and found it blurred, he knew he was in trouble. He tried to call out to the official in front of him, but before she even turned, his world grew dark and then completely ceased.

-o-

When the guide woke them up later, it seemed to Lan Fan that she had barely gotten any sleep. Still, she pushed the tempting calls of slumber to the back of her mind, focusing only on the task that lay ahead. She didn't know how many Red Stones Chu was able to manufacture, but the longer it took her to complete her mission, the higher the chance that there wouldn't be enough Red Stones for everyone who'd been infected.

They set out immediately after having light breakfast, continuing their route through the dark cavern, until they emerged out into the open. The sun was high in the sky by then. It was early morning. The space before them was now flat and rocky with traces of dead grass. The guide went behind another cave-like aperture in the canyon, and came out riding a small, sturdy jeep.

"Let's go," Paninya told her, and they settled in the back of the jeep. The ride was not as long as Lan Fan was expecting. Perhaps the man who had managed to escape had been terrified and stressed when he was traveling, enough to feel as if the ride from the canyon to the run-down warehouse took hours. For Lan Fan and her companions however, it only took a little more than one.

Even before she had exited the jeep, Lan Fan caught the horrible stench exuding from the sorry-looking building. It hit her then that the bodies of the people who had died that night were probably still in there. She had not given it any thought before, but it made a shudder run down her spine now.

Paninya came up beside her, grimacing. "Smells like a graveyard. Worse actually."

Lan Fan looked at her hesitantly. "Ever robbed a graveyard before?"

Paninya shrugged, before braving the odour and moving closer. "Not in Creta."

Lan Fan followed her, pulling up the zipper of the jacket. The collar only came up to her chin, not far enough for Lan Fan's taste. The smell got even worse when they passed the warehouse on their way to the rickety shed beside it, the place where the Red Stones were according to Winry's contact. Lan Fan hoped that nobody had gotten to the Red Stones before them. For once, she thanked Chu's meticulousness, knowing he would not leave the Red Stones in a place easily accessible by thieves and marauders.

Besides, it wasn't as if the decomposing smell was a welcoming sign. If anyone had ventured near this place, they were probably too cowed by the smell, and what it implied, to explore any further.

Lan Fan slid the door of the shack, and found stacks upon stacks of crates. Tentatively, she walked up to one of the crates, and pulled the dusty cover aside. Inside, was a treasure trove she never expected in her whole life to see.

The crate was lined with a sack entirely filled with what must be hundreds of Red Stones. Well, she assumed they were Red Stones, but they didn't look like the one she'd always received from Henry Chu. While hers had been a viscous liquid in glass bottles, these were solid crystals the size of her thumb. She reached out, then halted, unsure of what she was doing, but the urge to touch the stones were too strong. Lan Fan dug her hands in the crate, feeling the cold, solid sting of the crystals enveloping her hand.

"Hey," Paninya called. She was standing beside a tall stack of crates, looking at the one on top. "These ones here are in bottles, like the ones you used to have."

Lan Fan walked over to her, and found the other crate housing several layers of bottles padded with styrofoam. The sight of so many bottles lined up and stacked together filled her with such longing and loathing. It was something that months ago she would have given up her other arm for.

Knowing that Henry Chu had _this much_ and still found it in himself to be stingy with her, withholding what was scarce to her yet abundant to him... she felt even more hatred for him with an intensity she didn't know she could still muster.

"You think they're the same?" Paninya asked.

"Yeah, I'd bet on it," Lan Fan answered. She could see the appeal of a solid medicine. They were easier to transport and hide. Henry Chu would have seen their advantages.

She shook her head. "Let's go. Round it all up."

Lan Fan and Paninya spent the next hour or so stacking as many sacks of Red Stones as they could fit in the Jeep. There were half a dozen that were left behind, and Lan Fan looked at them dejectedly. If the ones in the vehicle somehow weren't enough to save the people in Xing, they would have to make the treacherous and time-consuming journey back here just to get these ones.

She cast her concerns aside. If the ones in the jeep weren't enough, the ones left behind would hardly make a dent in the seriousness of the situation. It would mean that too many people were in trouble, and there were not enough stones to go around. She nodded to Paninya, and they climbed back into the jeep.

"It's so sad," Paninya stated.

"What is?"

"Haven't you thought about it? The people of Creta needed this years ago. And now we actually have a cure, and we're taking it all away. How unfortunate that of all the people who managed to create the Red Stone, it had to be someone who is greedy and selfish, who would not share it with the people who really needed it."

The words sunk in Lan Fan's mind like a heavy anchor. She could not imagine how angry and hurt Cretans would feel knowing their neighbours locked them out, then created a cure right under their nose, and still refused to share it with them. And even then, Lan Fan couldn't bring herself to view what she was doing as wrong – the people of Xing needed the cure too. If they were unable to contain the plague in Xing, it would signify catastrophe, not only for Xing itself but also for Amestris who would undeniably bear the blame.

Winry had related to her that the Red Stone project was initiated in response to the Cretan Plague, so the Red Stone had been meant to help out the Cretans. But the dilemma lied in the process of creating the medicine. Was the pain of hundreds of human guinea pigs worth the pain of those succumbing under the plague? And who was the arbiter of that pain? Who got to say which suffering mattered more, which was more noble, which one was worth the sacrifice?

She turned back to Paninya, and answered her question. "Unfortunately, I don't think anyone with a heart would have been able to create the Red Stone." This miraculous cure had only been possible because one man had the exact right amount of greed and selfishness to be able to pursue the experimentation required in developing it. Her left shoulder tingled with memories.

They spent the majority of the ride in silence, the guide driving them north-east towards the wider passage that Auto-Mail occasionally used to illegally cross into Creta. When the sun reached the zenith of the sky, the guide passed around some sandwiches for all three of them, but continued to drive.

About an hour after their meager lunch, Lan Fan was about to doze off when a loud bang shot all the lethargy out of her system. Blood splattered on the window of the passenger door beside the guide, who keeled over and lost control of the wheel. Before Lan Fan could fully react, a series of gunshots peppered the driver's side of the jeep. She and Paninya crouched, to avoid being ran through with bullets.

When the car began to slow without the guide driving it, Paninya took advantage of a moment's reprieve from the gunshots to hop out of the backseat and into the driver's seat. She shoved the guide out of the way, moving him to the passenger side, then took hold of the wheel and began to steer.

"There's an automated launcher behind your backrest!" Paninya told her. "You can use it to fire at them, even with one hand!"

Lan Fan jumped out of the seat, turned around and pulled the padded backrest forward. It dislodged, revealing a storage space filled with weapons.

"What, you didn't think we'd come here unprepared, did you?" Paninya called.

Lan Fan pulled the backrest from where the other girl had been sitting beside her and found a similar sight. She took a weapon that looked like a gun but was sleeker and made of smooth, shiny metal. There was no trigger; just a handle and a barrel, but etched onto the barrel were digital buttons that glowed dark blue. She'd heard about these new technology launchers – they'd been developed to help the war effort in Aerugo, and each one was supposed to cost as much as a house in downtown Central Area.

Their jeep rattled, as Paninya tried to speed out of bullet range. But behind them, Lan Fan could already make out a couple of pursuers; there were two speeding cars chasing them. One had a man leaning out the window aiming his gun at them.

Lan Fan looked back at the launcher. These things were reputed to be intuitive to improve training among new soldiers. She scanned the buttons on the side, and pressed whichever one looked like it would make things shoot out of the barrel. A timer began to count down, and she leaned out the window to aim it at one of the cars. She was afraid she was going to catch a bullet of her own, but before she was able to complete that thought, the launcher released its load with a speed so fast that before she could even blink, the car she'd aimed at flipped over with a blast.

She pulled back the weapon, shocked.

Even the companions of those she shot down seemed to feel the same thing. They had fallen back with reduced speed, hesitating.

Lan Fan swallowed, and raised the launcher again. She fired at them, aiming many feet away, hoping it would deter them from continuing their pursuit. When an eruption of rocks and dust clouded the path in front of it, the car rolled to a stop.

She waited for a few more minutes to ensure that the bandits wouldn't start following them again, and when they didn't, she began to pull herself back into the car.

That was when she noticed it.

There were several holes at the side of the trunk. And one was leaking red liquid.

"Dammit!" Lan Fan cursed. She moved back inside the jeep, and began to rummage through the sacks and containers accessible from the backseat. There was nothing she could do about the broken bottles and the lost medicine now. But there was still something else that needed to be taken care of. She opened one of the sacks and took out one of the crystal stones.

"How is the guide doing?" she asked Paninya.

"Uh... bleeding. That's all I can tell."

Lan Fan broke off a small portion of the crystal near the tip. She moved between the passenger seat and the driver's seat, and studied the man. The bullet didn't seem to have lodged itself in him. Instead, it made a painfully deep graze across his chest, just below the collar bones. He was clutching his chest in a valiant effort against the pain.

"Here, take this," Lan Fan ordered, and she slipped the piece of stone into his mouth. He gagged, trying to swallow it, and she was worried he might choke. But he managed to do it, and he laid back again, eyes questioning her what she was up to.

Lan Fan moved one of his hands away from his chest. She watched, entranced as she saw the familiar twitches of flesh as the Red Stone sped up the natural healing process of the body, stitching flesh and skin back together. After a minute, the wound had completely disappeared.

"Wow," she heard Paninya whisper. Lan Fan looked back at her to find the girl peering over her shoulder.

"Shouldn't you be watching the road?" Lan Fan asked.

"Watch what?" Paninya asked, shrugging her shoulders. "It's empty and bare out there! Besides, that is _fascinating_! Damn!"

As if finally understanding what Paninya was saying, and perhaps also feeling that his own pain was abating, the guide pushed himself on his elbows and glanced down at his chest.

A surprised scream came out of him, followed by panicked ventilating. "W-what happened? What did you do? What the hell is going on here?"

Lan Fan covered his mouth to shush him.

"I'm going to tell you this, and I'm going to tell you only once. Whatever happened here, whatever you saw, whatever you experienced, you must not tell anyone."

He nodded numbly.

"If you have questions, go to Auto-Mail, _not_ anyone else, or else..." Lan Fan gave a meaningful nod to her left shoulder. "You might end up like me."

Lan Fan gave a piece of the stone to Paninya as well, telling her it would prevent the plague from manifesting should Paninya be infected.

Paninya drove the rest of the way, allowing their guide to regain his wits and his strength. He did, however, help as much as he could in navigating them through the border, where some patrols were posted. When they had safely crossed into Amestris, Lan Fan's smart phone began to receive signal once again. She called Winry to ask about their state of affairs.

"Head back to Youswell," Winry instructed her. "Colonel Mustang has readied several groups of people who would help distribute the Red Stones to affected areas in Xing."

"Have you heard word from Ling?" Lan Fan asked.

"Er, no. At least not Ling," Winry said, and Lan Fan felt a spark of worry. "The Ambassador was able to make contact earlier on, saying he's on his way to the City Hall. As for Ling, he said that they'd gotten separated. There's been no news of Ling yet."

"Oh, okay." Lan Fan hung up, and told Paninya to make their way to Youswell. She sat back in the car, feeling the nips of anxiety begin to gnaw at her.

-o-

Ling woke up with the smell of mustiness and anesthetic in the air. The ceiling above him was an unfamiliar dark gray cement. Across his body were several aches that jolted him awake. Ling pushed himself up from the thin, saggy futon to look around him.

Everywhere were bodies.

Lying in their own respective futons. Most seemed to be asleep, but many were fitful and mumbling incoherently. Ling shuddered. He moved aside the ragged blanket covering him, and stood up; his world spun momentarily, and there was a dizziness he couldn't quite shake off. At the end of one wall was a door with a glass window. He walked to it, and turned the knob.

It was locked.

Ling peered through the window, trying to see through to the other side. While the room he was in was dark and unlit, the opposite side was drenched in bright fluorescent light. There were people in medical gear moving about; some of them were covered in protective suits from head to toe. The door itself was walled in by glass panes with another door on one side.

Ling's heart hammered in his chest as he tried to turn the knob again. It didn't work, and he was starting to formulate an idea of what was going on. He looked back behind him, observing the other people; while there were some Xingese, many were Amestrians. Ling pounded on the door to try to get someone's attention. After a minute of knocking, someone finally glanced into the glass panes and opened up the outer set of doors. Ling noticed that it was operated digitally, with the person entering some kind of passcode. The person was wearing a full-body suit, complete with a head gear that resembled an astronaut's.

He opened the second door and came into the infirmary.

"I see you're up. My name is Dr. Tan. You have to wait a few more hours until your tests come back," the person explained.

Ling frowned. "Look, whatever's happening, I really need to talk to King Xiao right away."

Dr. Tan looked at him, surprised. "Um... well, that sure is an odd request." He placed a gloved hand on Ling's forehead. "You don't seem to have a fever."

Ling swatted the hand away. "I'm not ill! My name is Ling Yao, and I came to the country with the Ambassador of Amestris. We've been requested by King Xiao. I am _not_ lying." Ling fished for the identification card he kept with him in his wallet. He pulled it out and showed it to the doctor. It was an official citizenship card that marked him as someone from one of the old, major Families.

The doctor rubbed his chin. "Alright, this looks legit." He handed it back to Ling. "Unfortunately, you cannot leave this place."

Ling stared at him dumbfounded. "What do you mean? You can't even take me to a room to talk with the king in private even through the web?"

The doctor pointed helplessly at the label stuck to the glass panes. It was written in Xingese, the symbols for 'quarantine'. "I cannot allow you to leave, since you might be infected."

"Well, _now_ I might be infected! Of course! After spending, what... _hours_ with these people? Why did you put me in here with them anyway?"

"You were delivered here unconscious."

Ling rolled his eyes. "I fainted at the scene of the wreckage because I have gone almost two days without food!"

"Still, we cannot risk it!" the doctor exclaimed. "Reports said you had approached the truck. We would have had to include you in the quarantine whether or not you lost consciousness."

Ling forced himself to pause and take a deep breath. He didn't know whether he was angrier because his meeting with the king would be delayed or because he was forced to stay within the same vicinity as those who had already succumbed to the plague. Was it not criminal practice to do that when his results were still unconfirmed?

He felt about him, and found his phone still intact in his pocket. But when he turned it on and was welcomed with the notification that his service provider has been blocked, Ling half expected it. Knowing what he now knew about the few Families who botched the quarantine operation so that they could free their own relatives from the lockdown, the facility most likely disabled communication between those inside the quarantine and those who weren't.

"Look, could you at least find someone for me?" Ling asked, turning back to Dr. Tan. "If I can't talk to King Xiao, I at least need to get in contact with the Ambassador of Amestris."

"I will try," the doctor replied.

"Thank you."

Dr. Tan left him then, and Ling hesitated in going back into the infirmary. What if he wasn't infected with the plague yet? If he spent more time with the ill, he might just catch it. On the other hand, if he was susceptible to the virus, he would have caught it by now anyway.

And the dizziness he felt had now transformed into a dull, constant pounding at his temples. Ling rubbed his forehead, and decided to lie back down on his futon. He pulled up his scarf to cover his mouth and nose, though he didn't know what good that would do. Crouching against the wall, he lay his heads against his knees, trying to quell his headache.

He wondered how Lan Fan was faring. He sincerely hoped she was able to acquire the Red Stones that his father had hidden – at this point, he didn't know if he could handle any more lies or surprises. Perhaps it was the throbbing in his head, but Ling felt much more weary and stretched thin than he thought he'd be when the operation launched. And part of his weariness was due to feeling weary and stretched thin every time he dared to face his father.

_This has to be the last time_.

He was tired. Exhausted. And quite frankly, he was climbing higher on the pessimism scale by the minute. If things didn't work out again this time around... well, he'd have a lot more things to worry about than his father. There would be an epidemic, and maybe a war.

He snickered. Maybe he'd be dead.

Which in theory didn't sound as bad as the other options – at least he'd have nothing to worry about.

Ling shook himself from his morbid reverie, remembering Lan Fan and what she went through under his father's hands. What he was going through right now was nothing compared to that. This pain in his head, his laboured breathing, they were not comparable to the torture she'd been administered. It was almost cruelly unfair for him to remotely think about becoming hopeless. At the very least, he could not give up because Lan Fan deserved a better fruit to her labour than this.

He must have dosed off because the next thing he knew, Dr. Tan was shaking him awake. Ling looked up at him drowsily, finding the protective gear so out of place in the otherwise lackluster room.

"The Ambassador is here to see you," Dr. Tan said.

Ling pushed himself out of the bed as quickly as he could. Through the window of the door, he saw the Ambassador waiting for him, also dressed in a suit identical to the doctor's. Dr. Tan led him out of the first set of doors, and left them to converse by themselves within the little glass room.

"Any news?" Ling asked eagerly. "Were you able to see the king?"

"Yes, I was."

Those three words loosened the knots of apprehension in Ling, and he took a deep sigh of relief.

"Well, how did it go?"

The Ambassador made a move as if to scratch the back of his neck, but found himself unable to do so due to the suit. He gave a slightly uncomfortable grimace.

"He's not pleased," he stated. "I mean, you were correct that King Xiao would readily believe the explanation we prepared. Regardless, he holds the Amestrian government responsible for allowing Chu to operate that kind of business in the first place.

"There will be no war," the Ambassador assured him. "But King Xiao demands heavy reparations for the damages and the risks and the deaths – several of which have already occurred."

That did not sound good. With enough pressure, it could result in a forced resignation from the president.

Still. It was better than another war.

"What kind of reparations?" Ling asked.

"Monetary mostly, from what I gathered. Still, this is something that King Xiao and President Grumman would have to work out among themselves and their respective parliaments," the Ambassador explained. "The King also wants a heavy sentence against Chu, which is understandable. Since Henry has ceased to be a citizen of Xing since the revolution, it is up to us to give justice to what he's done. The King, on the other hand, states that he will take care of the Chu clan himself, since they seem to attract more trouble than they are worth."

Ling pondered over that answer for a while. If Xing required monetary compensation, that might not bode well for the nation of Amestris, which is still recovering from the ramifications of the coup-d'etat against Bradley and the war with Aerugo. Already, Amestris has made little improvements in terms of economic recovery; they've been hoping that the Fair Trade Agreement would act as a leverage in spurring economic activity again. But financial recompense would stunt the growth they'd been looking forward to. And that was considering that Xing would still go through with the free-trade. No doubt many of the citizens have already lost their trust in Amestris. Unless the situation is salvaged quickly and they are able to save face, many Xingese would bear a grudge against Amestris, and might even pressure Xiao to abandon all ideas of trading with them.

He was still rolling these thoughts in his mind when the last portion of the ambassador's explanation belatedly interrupted them.

"Wait, what did you say? About the Chu clan?" Ling asked.

"King Xiao would deal with them, so it seems."

"Deal with them? How?"

The Ambassador shrugged. "He did not tell me. His exact words were 'These mongrels need to be taken care of.' But it was more as if he was muttering to himself by that point. I don't know if we should take that as an indication of anything official."

Ling's eyes narrowed, as he tried desperately not to remember the stories of tribes and clans culled from existence by Xing's reigning power throughout its history; stories of people deemed too problematic, too subversive that they were better of gone; stories he'd been forced to learn during lessons mandatory for someone born into the Yao clan even though he called Amestris his home.

He tried not to think of them because honestly if the weight of the guilt already on his shoulders could manifest in the physical world, it would detach his arms right out of their sockets. He didn't know if he could handle more.

"Ling, child, are you alright?" the ambassador asked.

King Xiao wouldn't do anything like that in the stories, right? Those had been archaic and medieval times... well, up till fifty years ago, at least. The last of that kind of atrocities had happened during the Oblique Era. It had no place in a modern, humanity-centric civilization. King Xiao would never...

Ling shook his head. "Yes, I'm alright. Is there any other news?"

"I have heard from the Colonel that he has received the supply of Red Stones. They should be here soon."

Ling released a long sigh of relief. At least that part was going well. It meant that Lan Fan made it. She was okay. And if they made haste, hopefully the outbreak would be averted totally.

With nothing left to talk about, the Ambassador left him in the infirmary. He assured Ling that he'd stay in the hospital unless summoned again by someone from the government, until the Red Stones come. Mildly comforted, Ling searched for his futon in the dark, and lay in it to wait out the hours. A few times, he compulsively opened his phone, hoping against futility that perhaps he'd be able to catch a stream of signal somehow, but he never did.

His headache and hunger competed for the title of worst bodily affliction as the night wore on. When the tightness of his stomach had outdone the splitting ache in his head by just a bit, Ling threw the sheets from his body and shakily made his way to the glass room. He got the attention of a nurse, whom he asked for a small snack and some ibuprofen. She was kind enough to give him a freshly baked red bean pastry and a couple pills of liquid gel painkiller.

He settled back on his bed as he forced himself to munch on the pastry; hungry though he was, the aches in his body and the dizziness in his head made him nauseous, which made eating a bit of a challenge. After he'd downed the pastry, he popped the pills in his mouth, gagged a little when he tried to swallow them without water. After working his throat a bit, he was able to swallow them whole.

And hurled them back out, along with the snack he just ate, by the side of his bed. Retching, he curled at the side of the thin mattress, half-bracing himself against the wall. When his body had finished playing traitor, Ling pulled himself back, exhausted.

Great. This was just great.

This was punishment, he thought. Punishment for being greedy. That notion felt like a certainty, even as rationality caught up and told him not to be silly. He caught the plague. He caught it because he was surrounded by those who were infected with the plague. Simple as that. There need not be any more explanation for it.

But with heaviness clouding his head, it was hard to remain rational. Ling slumped against the wall, mind helplessly reliving the tales of barbarity and ruthlessness ordered by emperors long gone. He didn't know why that particular bit of news bothered him so much. He didn't even know if it really was the king's intention.

Ling knew and understood that the Chu clan should never have to carry the blame of his father's actions. Henry Chu was the one who conspired, the one who bribed and tortured and cheated and killed. The rest of his people were starving in a piece of coveted land without hardly a bright future of their own. But the Family-centric culture of Xing was still alive and well – the same cohesiveness that allowed Ling to share the protection of the Yao with Lan Fan also gave the sense of a monolithic mass of people with one mindset, one goal and one intention. It used to be that a crime of one member would be a crime of the entire Family; one little prank by a little noble boy a malicious start of war. The saying had been _together through bounty, together through storm_. A Family member could not expect protection and care, and then turn their backs when things got ugly.

No doubt King Xiao saw Henry Chu's actions as the action of the entire Chu clan. He could no longer punish Henry Chu himself, but the clan on the other hand was something he could control.

Ling couldn't help but wonder. Would King Xiao still find the Chu clan responsible if Ling hadn't interfered with his father's plans? If Henry felt a little less desperate, perhaps he would never have used biological weapons to force Grumman's hand against the trade agreement. And if Ling hadn't blackmailed his father into giving up his plan, perhaps Henry would never have released the infected Amestrians.

Ling turned around on his bed, another wave of nausea hitting him. He pushed back against it with the little strength he could muster.

He went from endangering a few people involved in his operation, to risking a continent-wide epidemic and the extermination of an entire clan. All in the name of trying to get his father to stop operating a sleazy business. Ling felt so pathetic thinking of the possibility that he managed to risk the lives of more people in the past month than his own father had in his entire career.

Slipping further into morbid self-pity, Ling curled in his bed and tried to sleep.

-o-

Henry Chu had been alone in the interrogation room for hours now. The swelling of his left cheek would not abate for days yet, but at least he was getting used to the feeling now. His lip was split, and the tips of his fingers were black and blue. His wrists, which were tied to the interrogating chair tightly by bands, were reddened and chaffed.

Henry didn't care. Well, not much anyway. He was the least of their concerns now. Evident by the hours alone. The Colonel and two of his men had left a while back, along with the interrogator they used, expert in multiple instruments so it seemed.

There was a hidden pocket on his left shoulder. It was sewn directly onto the matching straps that decorated the shoulders of his suit. Leaning his head forward, he used teeth and tongue to pry the small, slender pocket open, and it took only one well-done shrug to push the slab of Red Stone into his waiting mouth.

The minutes that ticked by were the only other ingredient in his quick-fix, and by the time five of it passed, his fingers returned to their normal, healthy colour, and he could feel his cheek return to its ordinary state. From here, easing his hands out of the straps were not difficult; he had noted that when they had thrown him in this seat, they were more concerned about fishing answers out of him than his chances of escaping. And at that time, he couldn't have possibly escaped, not with so many people in the room. When they left, they had made sure his hands were useless.

They didn't count on him having a Red Stone. It was little mistakes like those that Henry banked on; they were the opportunities he needed to make a headway. Like now.

He knew there would be guards outside. Most likely, he was also monitored by a camera. Whoever was watching him would know that he could now escape. But he didn't get to where he was if several guards could hinder him too much.

Bracing himself, he strode towards the door. As he reached for it, he heard the tumblers gearing into place, and he jumped a few paces back, readying himself against whoever was sent to deal with him.

The door opened, and he'd be lying slightly if he said he wasn't caught off guard by the person who met his gaze.

"Hello, Henry," the smooth, oily voice said. "Long time no see."

Yuna Yao. Henry frowned. Why in the world was she here?

Another voice, an unfamiliar one, came from behind him. "Man, these straps are poorly manufactured! I always say, never let another person do a job you can do better."

Henry spun around to find another woman inspecting the interrogating chair he'd been sitting on moments ago. Her black hair was tied up in a pony tail, but the locks were clumped together like dreadlocks. She looked back at him, then cracked her knuckles as if he looked like a good sport. How did she get there, in the center of the room without him noticing? Was there another door?

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

"Forget her," Yuna said, adding an eye-roll that almost indicated how _boring_ this all was to her. "I'm here to make you a proposition."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woot, woot, two more chapters! A conclusion and an epilogue! Thank you so much for sticking with this story, you guys! As promised, I'd start working on the next chapter asap, since you guys left so many wonderful reviews last chapter and I'd still be able to make my 3 review-per-chapter goal. That said, I do appreciate comments in general, so don't be shy!
> 
> I hope you guys have a happy holidays!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope 2016 is treating you all well. I just realized that I forgot to respond to some of the anonymous reviewers last chapter. I'm so sorry! I'm glad many of you are still tuning in to this story, though! It's been a wild ride, and I can't believe I'm writing the second-last chapter of this fanfic.
> 
> **HappyAnt21** : Yup, it's Izumi! Thanks for the review!
> 
> **loveneverchanger** : Can I just sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart for reviewing the past chapters and leaving a really nice note at the end? Thank you so much for that vote of confidence. Yes, work and personal life for me have been a little crazy last year, but I gotta say that writing this fic helped pull me through, so I can't help but give it my best shot.
> 
> Also, I took the time to review the entire story so that I can plan out the last two chapters and make sure that I don't leave out any dangling threads. One of the things I noticed is that I didn't explain a couple of concepts very well. I'm sorry if this was a point of confusion; my outline had detailed explanations for these, but I realized that I might not have explained them very well within the context of the story. So, here's a more elaborate explanation for some of the terms:
> 
> _The Oblique Era_ : This is a period of time in Xing when many of the the imperial traditions started to break down, and the country was revolutionized. It spanned fifty years, and Henry Chu was born in the midst of the era. One of the major changes in the Xingese political infrastructure is that the Fifty Families eventually dissolved. The last emperor (Ling's paternal grandfather) declared the system defunct, and the government moved towards a tamer monarchy in which the needs of the majority is prioritized over the need to appease all Families equally.
> 
> _The Sanitary Movement_ : This refers to the "cleansing" of the Amestrian government during the revolt against Fuhrer Bradley (which is why people call it "Sanitary"). The aim was to purge corruption out of the Amestrian government that Bradley had perpetuated. The leading faction of the movement involved current president Grumman and Colonel Mustang's team of militants. During the movement, they found themselves short on money, and so they approached XYZ Ltd. for some loans. To this day, they are struggling to repay the loan, but the need to retrieve the Red Stone prototype became more urgent.
> 
> And yes, I now realized that I misspelled _desert_ several times into _dessert_. How embarrassing, hehe!

"Ling is quarantined."

Lan Fan froze, and for a moment her mind was suspended in utter blankness with no other streams of thought but the echoes of the Lieutenant's comment. The ride to Youswell had been as uneventful as it had been tense, and she had hoped to come to the meeting point with at least some reassuring news of her friend. Quarantine was not reassuring.

"What?" she managed to squeak after a while. "W-what do you mean? Why did they throw him in there?"

Lieutenant Hawkeye brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes and shrugged helplessly at Lan Fan. "We received word from the Ambassador of Amestris that Ling accidentally got involved with the truckload of infected Amestrians in the Liu province. Along with them, he's been sent to the quarantine."

The cold wind suddenly seemed to bite a little colder. Her mind had yet to catch up to the plethora of questions that vied for her attention. But in a mere moment, the instinctual part of her had shoved the snowballing series of queries aside, and in its stead, she was confronted with what she needed to do.

"I'll go to Liu!" Lan Fan volunteered. "You said we need to split up anyway to the three cities that are buckling under the threat of the plague. I'll come along with those assigned to go to Liu province."

Hawkeye glanced at the group of state militants who were handling the Red Stones that Lan Fan and Paninya delivered less than an hour ago. They were under the strictest of surveillance to ensure that not a single one of the Red Stones would be taken away. Right now, the emergency in Xing was the top priority and all of their resources needed to be mobilized there. Only militants were supposed to be deployed. The select few who had been chosen to go would receive a reasonable dose of the Red Stone for protection.

"Look, this changes nothing except for a seat in the fast jets," Lan Fan explained. "I'm sure one of your guys might not even want to go to Xing anyway. I'm already immune, so this way, we can even save an entire dose for any of the ones infected in Xing."

Hawkeye nodded. "I have nothing against your plan. I suggest you run it by the Colonel just to get clearance though. When he agrees, board the jet on platform 81."

Lan Fan hoisted her backpack higher up her shoulder and began to run towards where Colonel Mustang was directing the effort of dividing the bounty proportionally into three. Paninya followed her.

"You want to go to Xing?" Lan Fan asked, looking back.

"Well, why not?" the dark girl asked back. "I already had my fair share of Red Stone intake, and you never know when you can use an extra hand." Lan Fan narrowed her eyes at the pun. Paninya grinned. "Or two."

Luckily, the Colonel didn't mind that they replace two of the militants assigned for Liu province. Out of the three cities that were targeted, Liu was the smallest one in terms of area and population. The fraction of Red Stone allotted for Liu was consequently smaller than the other ones. Unfortunately nobody knew the exact number of people affected by the plague. Testing for the presence of the pathogen took a while, so it was difficult to confirm just how many were really infected and how many were just under suspicion. A lot of those suspected to be ill were checking into the hospitals, but because of the widespread chaos and panic, more patients were also being checked in due to life-threatening injuries. Lan Fan was certain they had to account for them. It just seemed unfair otherwise. They wouldn't be dying if the biological weapons weren't released.

The jet ride was supposed to be very quick, but even sitting still for a few minutes made Lan Fan restless. Paninya was able to catch a decent nap beside her, but Lan Fan was not unfamiliar with foregoing sleep during stressful times. She had a pretty satisfying rest the previous night in the hidden cave in the canyon, and now she was just a bundle of unused energy.

She tried to recall back to the time when she'd been affected by the contagion, back when she was still trapped in Chu's secret laboratories. The sickness had caused muscle entropy within the first few days. She didn't remember a lot of details, just a mind-blowing sense of nausea and weakness... but then again, her memories of that time were all hazy. In any case, from her nebulous memories, she could hope that by the time they landed in Liu province, it would not yet be too late for the antidote to reverse the effects.

Agitated, she repositioned herself in her seat. How did Ling get involved with the sick Amestrians anyway? He was supposed to go to the City Hall, which was an hour's drive away from the hospital holding the quarantine, according to the Lieutenant. Burying her face in her hands, she tried to take a calming breath. He would be alright. They would make it in time... hopefully.

When the jet landed what felt like a lifetime later to Lan Fan, she was a fidgety sack of nerves, and almost jumped out of her seat as soon as the jet rolled to a stop. They didn't even use a proper port, the closest of which was a province away; instead, they landed in an abandoned clearing close to the hospital and were met by Xingese patrols. She and Paninya boarded one of the jeeps that would take them to the hospital, and waited until the Red Stones were packed properly and the others managed to get a seat.

She hoped she would get a chance to help distribute the Red Stones – and in particular, get to see Ling and help him herself. But when they arrived and she walked into the hospital, she didn't make it past the lobby. Paninya stayed by her side, and when a receptionist approached them, she told them in broken Amestrian what Lan Fan understood as, "You have to wait here. No one is allowed to go past but those wearing proper attire." Lan Fan knew she must have been talking about the full-body protective suit, which was what many of the doctors were wearing, and was about to insist that it didn't matter – she was immune anyway.

"I'm assuming you are part of the group who's delivering the medicine?" a deep, masculine voice called out from behind them. Lan Fan spun around and found someone who was not at all familiar to her. Tall and medium-built, he had a patch of oiled-back brown hair covering his head and trimmed mustache of the same colour resting on his lip.

"Yes," she said, eyeing him up and down.

The man smiled. "I'm the ambassador that the President of Amestris sent this morning," he stretched out his hand. "Thank you for the speedy delivery. I heard the antidotes were hidden in Creta!"

Lan Fan ignored the comment. "You were with Ling!" she exclaimed. "What happened to him?"

The Ambassador looked at her, surprised perhaps by how brash she was acting. But Lan Fan was too high-strung to care. He seemed to understand her temperament, however, and offered a kind smile in return. "Let's sit over there and talk about it, shall we? I really think we ought to let the doctors handle things for now. It might not do us well if we get in the way, after all, and we can't afford to get blamed for yet another thing!"

As they settled down on a bench along the wall in the waiting area, the Ambassador narrated of how Ling had tried to save the infected Amestrians from a bunch of vigilantes trying to kill them. Lan Fan cursed Ling's heroic tendencies. It was ironic, of course, since she knew that without his penchant for wanting to save the day, she probably would have lost more than an arm.

The Ambassador then related to them the understandable yet somewhat disappointing result of his interview with King Xiao. Lan Fan felt that they probably could not do much better than that; as a matter of fact, the King probably acted more mercifully than the situation warranted. If the King did not hold them responsible for what happened and demand heavy compensation, he would lose the trust of his people.

They watched the bustle of the hospital, observing the busy fussing of doctors and nurses as they tended to patients. The largest hallway was lined with red bulbs, and Lan Fan had noticed that several hospital workers had wheeled the Red Stones down that way. She couldn't see beyond the wall that delineated the hallway, but she knew that must be where the quarantine was. Where Ling was.

Even then, it quite surprised her that only about half of the busy work was happening in that direction. There were plenty of other things competing for medical attention; the ER was especially hectic, with patients being delivered almost every ten minutes. In addition to that, three receptionists were frantically trying to reassign rooms, or so it seemed – Lan Fan could only catch a thread of their conversation among the constant humming of white noise.

"The city must be in chaos," Paninya said.

"My head is in chaos," Lan Fan muttered back. Paninya nudged her against the shoulder in a friendly way.

"C'mon, relax a bit, would you?"

It was much, _much_ later when a doctor began to approach them. He had a smile on his face, and it did more than Lan Fan would admit in raising her hopes up a little.

"We've administered the medicine to the majority of those in quarantine. Now we separated them in individual rooms to allow each person enough space to recover, just in case someone's constitution might not favour the Red Stone and they can accidentally infect anyone with them."

The Ambassador nodded.

"But wait," Lan Fan said. "You said the majority? What about the rest?"

The doctor's face fell. "We were short one dose of the Red Stone. One patient did not receive his share."

Lan Fan groaned. If she didn't think they had a miserable sort of luck before, she definitely did now. Unbidden, the memory of the spilled liquid Red Stones came to her mind, and she cursed the bandits who had tried to hinder their escape from Creta. If only they had managed to exit Creta without any incident, then perhaps there wouldn't be anyone left without a cure.

And judging by their ill-fate, she suddenly had a sinking notion who it might be.

"Is it Ling Yao?" she managed to ask in a small voice. The doctor looked at her as if she had some kind of telepathic powers, and that was when the sinking feeling metamorphosed into something more like a ten-ton anchor being dropped to the ground from the second-story of the king's palace. She buried her face in her hand, trying to stop herself from seething.

"The young man insisted that every other patient be taken care of first," the doctor added. "But when we got to the last dose of Red Stone, there were still two of them left."

Lan Fan felt a growl threatening to escape her throat. She only barely managed to contain it when she forced herself to calm down. It wouldn't be a very appropriate display of emotions if she lost her temper in a hospital filled with dying people.

"Can I please see him?" she asked, her voice straining to keep its volume down.

"Uh, I'm sorry, unless you're of direct relation to him, I cannot advice–"

"Yes! Yes, I actually _am_ of direct relation to him!" Lan Fan fished for her marriage certificate from her pocket, and opened the folded document. "I'm married to him! Yup, I'm his wife. Says so here."

"Wait, _what_?" Paninya shrieked in response, grabbing the paper from Lan Fan's hands. The girl's eyes widened to the size of saucers as she read the certificate. Her gaze slowly peeled away from the creased paper to her friend. "How _dare_ you? You got _married_ and you didn't even _invite_ me!" Her voice squeaked at the end out of downright indignation.

Lan Fan could only shrug at Paninya, feeling like this wasn't the appropriate time to explain everything. She turned back to the doctor. "Please let me see my husband. We've taken a dose of Red Stone ourselves, so the plague should be less likely to infect us." Lan Fan didn't bother to mention that her case was more complicated than that.

The doctor looked helplessly at the certificate, and then finally sighed. "Alright. Follow me. You will need to suit up even if you say you've already ingested the antidote."

He led them down the hallway lined with red lights, and all the while they were walking, Paninya was haranguing her about getting married without letting her best-friend-in-the-entire-world know about it and proceeded to declare her a complete traitor.

-o-

The interrogation room was smaller than Yuna thought it would be. Or perhaps, it could all just be a part of the poor lighting. Goodness, how do these Amestrian militants work in such dimly lit atmospheres? If they intended for it to appear menacing, she knew that such a superficial thing would never work on Henry Chu. There were very few things that worked on Henry Chu.

Violence was one of them.

And Yuna had not forgotten how to fight.

She sprinted to where Henry was standing, and sent a low-kick aiming for his ankle; it was a move that had caught her own son many times when she had trained him, but Henry just shifted his foot away. She looked up at him, smirked for one moment, before dodging his downward punch by sliding against the floor and emerging behind him. She sent her elbow against the crook of his knee, but he recovered from the resulting imbalance quickly. On her way up, she blocked the series of attacks he sent her, but by that time, she knew it was over. She flipped backwards, distancing herself from him, and stood in a non-aggressive posture.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What? Tired already? You women really age so quickly," he sneered.

"Who are you calling old?" Izumi barked, and Yuna only had to look past Henry's shoulder to find the other woman standing behind him near the door, where Yuna had been only a moment before. They had switched their initial positions during the fight. Henry glanced back at Izumi with distaste, as if admonishing her for the constant interruption, but his eyes widened when he saw what was in her hands.

Two more slivers of Red Stone.

"Got a lot of secret pockets there," Izumi said.

Yuna noticed Henry stop himself from searching his clothes in time, knowing that that action would just confirm that he'd been caught off guard. While Yuna was engaging him, he had not expected Izumi to pilfer his other sources of remedy.

Instead, he collectedly turned back to Yuna with all the poise of a snake... an angry one.

"You've really sunk low, Yuna," Henry snarled. "It used to be that you can _almost_ hold your own against me, and now, you need another middle-aged wench to try and handle me."

Yuna choked on a laugh, knowing full well that Henry was spouting face-saving nonsense considering that he had barely hidden his surprise at Izumi's stunt. "Don't flatter yourself. If handling you is all I intended to do I would have never brought Izumi along."

Chu waited for her to continue.

"Consider her a witness," Yuna added, keeping an eye on him as she pulled out a neatly folded bundle of sheets from her vest pocket. "For a legal procedure, of course. I want you to hand over XYZ Ltd. to Ling."

There was an elongated moment's pause in which Henry did nothing but stare back at her blankly. Nobody made a move. Then he erupted into a boisterous, violent laugh, almost doubling over in his effort to control his humour.

It took a while for him to finish, but Yuna stood there patiently just watching. When he was done, his eyes were wet with tears, probably the only tears capable of coming out of him. He was still chuckling when he told her, "Well, what audacity you have! Why don't you wait while I call my lawyer?" He laughed again.

Yuna smiled, not begrudging him his mirth, even as she watched Izumi deliver a powerful, precise kick near the base of his spine. A loud, sickening crack echoed in the small room.

Henry's laugh was cut short. Instead, a flash of pain appeared on his face, right before he crumpled to the ground, his legs suddenly useless. He convulsed for a moment, trying to regain connection to lost nerves, but to no avail. Yuna slowly walked over to him, crouching as she reached his side. His face was ruddy with the effort of containing his pain, and his forehead was moist with beaded sweat.

Izumi might call herself just a housewife, or a shop owner at best, but there was no denying the woman's advanced skills in martial arts. It was a constant source of amusement and envy, even for Yuna.

"You've grown way too over confident," Yuna told him quietly. From a pocket she pulled out her phone. "Now, what were you saying about a lawyer? You can give me his number and we'll make a call... or you can sign the papers and have that tiny ruby gem Izumi's holding to fix your back."

Henry sent her a seething glare.

"You know what you always do best, Henry?" Yuna continued. "It's not womanizing, unfortunately. Not even running a business. And it's _especially_ not figuring out certain geological mysteries involving Drachman volcanoes," she gave him a teasing smile. "But as much as it galls me to admit, what you're really good at is keeping your life. You married me to avoid a life of persecution in Xing, you blackmailed and tricked Lan Fan into letting you live, and who knows how many other times you've bargained for your life in exchange of something you can give?"

Yuna jumped back deftly as Henry lashed out a hand to try and grab a hold of her. He missed, and he yelled out in pain as the action strained his ruined back.

"It won't be difficult to kill you when half of you is already dead," Yuna said. "And don't make the mistake of thinking I won't do it just because I haven't tried before."

"You're a fool," Henry managed to wheeze out in between pained gasps for breath. "You think you can make Ling owner of my company simply by having me sign some documents? The process would take weeks! It could take months to make the transfer legal!"

"Oh please, you and I both know how many strings each of us can pull. And I'm surprised that after all this time you still worry about legality!" Yuna scoffed. "Never mind that. I'll take care of it. Just sign the papers." Carefully, she returned to his side and crouched down to settle the document on the ground beside his hand. Izumi loomed over him, placing each of her feet on either side of him, and pinned his left arm to his back. He groaned, but couldn't do much but wiggle his right arm.

"Honestly, I'd have thought you would agree right away!" Yuna exclaimed, dodging his arm. "Your options are so clear. Death on one hand, life on the other. I've made the choice so easy, I really don't understand where this petulance is coming from." Finally, she leaned closer to him. "Or is it your clan you worry about? Your company, after all, is their life blood. Just think of it this way: with your death, you guarantee that you'll never, _ever_ be able to lift another finger to help out your clan. But if you live... you never know."

It wasn't in Yuna's best interest to insinuate that perhaps Henry might still be able to live a life outside of bars – it definitely was not an idea she should be putting in his head. But Henry was a glutton for the taste of life, and she knew that he also knew if there was anything more he could do to help his clan – imprisoned or not – he wouldn't be able to do it if he was dead.

The look he sent her was murderous. She matched his stare with all the steeliness she possessed until he buckled, and angrily grabbed the pen she had laid out on the floor beside the paper.

Once he had signed all the sheets, she grabbed it and stood up. Izumi released him.

"Hey, you promised the stone!" Henry yelled, squirming on the ground.

"So I did," Yuna said as she walked around him, back to the doorway where Izumi had already unlocked the door. They opened it to reveal a host of state militants standing guard outside. Izumi dropped the two stones in the hands of the lead.

"They'll be taking good care of you," Yuna added one last time, before walking through the group. She didn't look back; she only clutched the rolled up papers in her shaking hand, trying not to over-think the events that just transpired, nor of what it would imply in the near future. The latter, she would leave to Ling.

"XYZ Ltd., hmm?" Izumi muttered beside her. "Not bad. Maybe now you don't have to pay your meat in installments."

Yuna glanced at her sideways, and gave her a smile. This had been a last minute plan, but she'd seen a window of opportunity, and she at least had to try. Her son had been working way too hard. "You better sign the papers too. I'd like to say I dragged you all the way here so we can be a dynamic duo, but alas, that day is still way off." With that, she handed the other woman the document as they headed out of the precinct.

-o-

Ling had spent the better part of the evening transitioning between a blurry, hazy kind of consciousness and an equally blurry, hazy active dream-state that he couldn't quite call unconsciousness. People were supposed to not remember anything when they were unconscious. Their mind was to be in a state of rest. _His_ mind seemed like it had taken a trip down the rabbit hole without even the decency to trick him into thinking he was asleep.

He even dreamed of Lan Fan. In the feverish nebula of his mind, she'd been standing on the bridge in the Yao gardens, looking into the reflecting pool in that unique, contemplative way of hers. He distinctly remembered the pool to be quite a deep emerald in shade, but in this version, it was a vibrant red. For some reason, Ling didn't even find it odd. He only felt a strange urge to come up to her and talk with her, because obviously it would make him feel better.

The illusion was shattered when a group of doctors came into the quarantine. Or at least, it seemed to Ling that the illusion had ceased, but he was not sure. He felt way too feverish.

When the doctors began carting off each of the patients one by one, Ling's mind had cleared a little, enough so that he began to comprehend bits and pieces of what was happening. They were being separated. When he'd caught the attention of one of the doctors, she'd explained that the Red Stones had finally come and they felt it was better if each patient tried to recuperate separately.

"Leave me last," he'd told them, and they did. Ling felt like he was cheating by vying for a Red Stone when he was the reason many of these people had found themselves infected in the first place.

When they had finally gotten to him, they pulled him from his futon and helped him into a small, clean room. Along the way they mentioned that all the Red Stones were gone. He supposed he should have felt some kind of disappointment or shock from that news, but his feelings didn't change. He just felt groggy. When they added that they would try to get an extra Red Stone from one of the two other sites but that it might take a while, Ling thanked them, but he wasn't sure if they were serious or merely trying to pacify any thoughts of hopelessness.

A few minutes after he'd been tucked in, three people came in his suite. At first he thought they were all just doctors, but after squinting through their protective headgears, he realized only one of them was.

He heard Dr. Tan briefly say, "I'll give you some time to yourselves," before walking out of the room. When the door shut behind him, Lan Fan hurried to his side.

"You should be thankful you look like a sorry sack of flesh because if you didn't, I would _punch_ you," she whispered to him with enough intensity that Ling had to question whether his mind had reverted back to its dream state.

"Wait, what?" he managed to croak out.

Lan Fan ran her hand through her bangs in an agitated manner. "Why in the world would you... h-how could you even think... ugh, I don't even know where to start! Plunging into a crowd filled with sick people? What were you thinking?"

Ling tried to clear his throat. "They were being bombed."

The frown on Lan Fan's face melted away for a moment, but then it was replaced by a low-lidded stare exuding sarcasm. "What is it about explosions you're so _attracted_ to?"

"You know they are innocent. I'm sure you would have been appalled if you'd seen what was going on."

"And this?" she asked, hand gesturing to his reclining figure on the bed. "Why would you refuse a Red Stone?"

"I didn't refuse," Ling clarified. "I just told them to leave me last. The other patients had no choice in their circumstances. But me, I half-orchestrated for this to happen. It would be cruel for me to be cured while one of them doesn't. Really, I'd consider it murder."

Lan Fan scoffed, but didn't argue.

"Remember the time when we went to my father's office in Tobha?" Ling asked her. She gave him a curious look and nodded. "There was a father and a daughter who was killed afterwards, because my father assumed they were related to the break-in. At that time, I thought their sacrifice was worth it if only I could continue to plan my father's downfall. Same with Shai from the very first operation who tried to steal the Dealer's notebook. For the longest time I thought their sacrifices would not be in vain."

"And now?"

Ling sighed and covered his eyes with his arm. "There are too many deaths. I don't know what to think anymore."

"Then don't think." Lan Fan scooted closer, and she brushed a hand through his hair. Her hand felt cool against his heated skin. "Just try to rest. The doctor said they will try to get an extra Red Stone down from Yin province if there are any left. But since all the affected cities are in lockdown, anyone who needs to exit from Yin would need to obtain clearance that they're safe to leave. With all the tests and documentation and whatnot, the doctor said they expect the back-up to get here tomorrow night. So in the meantime, just rest. The plague doesn't act so quickly if you're at least trying your best to give your body a fighting chance."

Ling settled back deeply into his pillow. "At least I have a fighting chance," Ling mumbled. "Apparently the Chu clan doesn't."

"What are you talking about?"

Ling lifted his arm from his face. "The Ambassador told me that King Xiao plans to subdue the clan since they're being problematic. I don't even want to know how that's going to turn out."

Lan Fan made a face. "You're worried about this now? It's not like he's going to cull them. Xing is a modern nation. He'd be charged with crime both against state and humanity if he does that. If anything, just the fact that it would throw Xing back centuries in the opinion of the rest of the world would definitely make King Xiao avoid that option at all costs."

"Still," Ling added softly. "We can probably hope for an assimilation program at best, and that's still quite bad. An entire people, losing their culture and heritage because of me."

"Oh stop being so morbid!" Lan Fan shook him gently. "It's the plague, I tell you. It's getting to your head. Sickness always does. Or does this still have anything to do with Henry Chu telling you he's proud?"

When he didn't respond, she sighed and turned away. "Ling, I already told you–"

It was then that Ling was attacked with a coughing fit so violent, he had to curl up on his side. He threw a hand over his mouth, despite knowing full well that it would do little good. He felt Lan Fan rub his back, waiting patiently until his coughing ceased. When he pulled his hand away, it was spotted with red stains and he could taste the metallic flavour of blood in his mouth. He felt Lan Fan hesitate, and then she gently opened up his palm.

"That's not good," she said. "That didn't happen to me until three days after getting infected."

Ling swallowed, exhausted after his bout of coughs.

"Could it be because of that thing that makes him faint?" Paninya asked from the corner of the room. "Maybe his poor health is exacerbating the effects of the plague."

Ling's brows furrowed. "You mean hunger? I wouldn't call that _poor_ health. If anything, I'd call that normal." Now that he thought about it though, he hadn't been able to eat anything at all for a while now. The small snack he'd obtained earlier he had thrown up. But now he was hooked up to an IV drip. Shouldn't that help somewhat?

Lan Fan shook her head. "I don't know what it is, but I'm not certain we can wait until tomorrow for the Red Stone anymore."

There was a moment of silence, as he and Paninya shared an uncertain glance.

"What are you saying we do, Lan Fan?" Paninya asked, even though by her tone, she seemed to already know what Lan Fan was trying to imply. She was just incredulous, and Ling had to admit he was too. They would have to leave.

"Yīnyún, the capital city of Yin province, is less than an hour's drive north from this site," Lan Fan said. "The general hospital there is where the other group is quarantined, and that's where the other Red Stones will be."

"And may I remind you that both cities are on lockdown?" Paninya said, hands open in a gesture of disbelief.

"Great!" Lan Fan answered. "That means the roads would mostly be clear. Better for driving."

"Unless, of course, you count the people who might come after us," Ling said.

Lan Fan was silent for a while, staring at the floor in concentration. Then she turned back to Ling and his red-spotted hand. "If anything happens and the Red Stone doesn't make it here by tomorrow – and you have to admit that with the bureaucracy currently in place to implement the quarantine, many things might happen – you would be too affected by the plague for us to be able to do anything ourselves. And to be frank, I have more confidence in us getting there ourselves than waiting for whoever would be sent to come here."

Ling pushed himself up on his elbows. "But if we get caught, we'd be killed. That's one of the policies for the lockdown. Not just me. You two as well. They'll assume the worst."

Lan Fan did not answer. She turned to Paninya. "Can you steal Ling out of the hospital?"

Paninya gave her pun a flat-look, but seemed to think about it. Finally, she told Lan Fan, "Get out of your protective suit."

-o-

Lan Fan supposed that with both their hair down, Ling might pass off as her, especially with the bulky headgear that pretty much covered the entire head except for a small plastic portion for the face. The suit ended up a bit short for him, which was a problem because they couldn't hide his left hand within the sleeve. So he had to put it inside the bodysuit, tucked against his torso. He was visibly taller too, taller than Paninya, but if they avoided the doctor who took them there, nobody might even think twice about who they were. Paninya told her that she'd use the trip from the dressing room as an opportunity to sneak out of the hospital with Ling. But they wouldn't actually remove the suits; first, it was much easier to go around the hospital if other people thought they might be doctors or assistants; and secondly, Ling was contagious and the suit would prevent him from infecting anybody. They would meet at the parking lot where the vehicles that had transported the crates of Red Stone were parked.

Lan Fan slipped out of the room a good few minutes after Paninya helped Ling out. She knew that the best thing they could do to increase their chances of getting out was to ensure they would not be discovered immediately. She packed the sheets and pillows into a human figure on the bed to trick any doctors at first glance. But after she sneaked out of the room, she made sure to return to the doctor who had allowed them to visit Ling. She told him that Ling was now sleeping peacefully. Hopefully, that would make him believe there was no need to check up on Ling so quickly. She also passed by the Ambassador and told him that she and Paninya would visit the cafeteria in the opposite wing for some dinner.

After that, it was just a matter of combining stealth and luck for her to sneak to the parking lot. Paninya said she'd choose the farthest vehicle from the entrance so that the rumble of the engine would not alert anyone right away.

In hindsight, Lan Fan guessed she could not have been assigned a better companion than Paninya. The girl was probably used to these kinds of escapes from all the larceny commissions she provided. Bodyguarding, on the other hand, was not quite so... evasive. And illegal.

She noticed Paninya sending her a wave through the windows of one of the jeeps, and Lan Fan didn't waste any time jumping right in. "You two would have to guide me through the roads," Paninya said as she revved up the engine with as much care as she could. "I can't read Xingese." Paninya began to drive slowly, easing themselves out of the lot.

There were patrols lining the block of the hospital, and they had to stop the jeep some ways off. The night was dark enough and the jeep was black and its headlights were turned off, so it added a little to their luck that they could not exactly be noticed unless someone was very observant. Paninya studied the patrols for a minute and half, before deciding she could not pass through without diversion.

"Most patrols are on a rotation of at least an hour," Paninya said. "I don't know how it's usually done in Xing, but if we had the terrible misfortune of coming out just after the shift has changed, we might be stuck here for a while. How do you want to this?" She turned to Lan Fan who was sitting in the passenger seat. "If you were to distract the patrols, can you manage to sneak out of the melee again and catch up to us on the other side of the patrol area?"

"Uhm..." Lan Fan thought for a moment. She might not be able to do it without knocking everyone out, and that, unfortunately, might attract more attention.

"I have an idea in mind, and I'm pretty sure I can pull it off," Paninya said. "So if you can manage to drive this car even for a short distance, it would help me a lot."

"I'll try," Lan Fan said, hoping that trying would be good enough. She took over Paninya's seat, as the girl climbed out of the jeep.

"I need you to drive straight through to the other side of the patrol area as soon as you see the patrols leave, okay?" Paninya instructed her. "Then wait for me at the curb with the hospital sign. Try to keep your head down while you wait." Then she jogged across the lot.

Lan Fan sat behind the wheel, straining her eyes against the dark. Her palm was sweaty. She had driven before, so she knew how to drive. But she hadn't done it since she lost her arm.

It was about a five minute wait before she and Ling began to notice that something had caught the attention of the patrols ahead. After a while, they all ran to the east, the same direction that Paninya had taken.

Time to go, then.

Lan Fan stepped on the pedal, careful to mimic Paninya's speed earlier to avoid making a whole lot of noise. The route she had to take was straight and short, but her heart drummed in her chest; anxious thoughts of someone discovering their jeep kept her jumpy. But she kept her gaze straight and her pace even, and eventually they managed to cross the threshold of the patrol area. As instructed, Lan Fan turned left and drove to the side of the road where the big hospital sign announced the building. There, hand cold with sweat, she sat gingerly waiting for Paninya to come back.

She and Ling sat there for ten tense minutes, until she heard, more than saw, Paninya coming from the side.

"Scoot, scoot!" Paninya waved for Lan Fan to get back in the passenger seat. "Hurry!" Once there was space for her to get in, Paninya sat in the driver's seat, and began to drive away. Lan Fan didn't bother to ask what she did. She already knew that thieves were stingy with their secrets, and quite frankly, she didn't think it was as important as getting to Yin.

It was mostly Ling who helped Paninya navigate around the city blocks. Lan Fan could read the signs, but as she'd never actually been to Xing before, she had little knowledge of the road system, whereas Ling had at least spent some time vacationing in the country.

While they were in the city, they kept a slow pace just in case they would come across another set of patrols. Ling told them that the previous day, several Families had tried to sabotage the quarantine to rescue some of their relatives. The city had to double down their securities after that.

"It might work to our advantage though," Ling said. "The three Families attacked from the south and the west. We're heading north, so there's a good chance there might be less patrols posted there."

They crawled at a turtle's pace, and Lan Fan felt so tense she almost wanted to tell Paninya to just speed up and get out of the city. But she trusted that the girl knew what she was doing. And that trust was not misplaced. Paninya kept her calm and strolled to park gently whenever they noticed a patrol car cruising somewhere nearby. When one of them had been parked right where they needed to pass by, Paninya had them repeat the same routine that they performed in the parking lot – distraction, Lan Fan taking over the driving for a while, and Paninya catching up to them.

All in all, it took them half an hour to get past the northern border of the city, much more time than Lan Fan had anticipated. Still, the majority of patrols were assigned within the city itself and not outside. Which meant that now that they were on the freeway, there was very little holding them back from stomping on the gas pedal, which was exactly what Paninya did.

Lan Fan felt vigilant the entire time, hoping any minute that they would see the sign welcoming them to Yin province.

A bright beam of light suddenly blinded their windshield, and for a moment, Lan Fan thought there was oncoming traffic who hadn't noticed them. But a few seconds later, the beam disappeared, only to come back again.

"Oh damn!" Ling called out. She looked back at him and found him peering out of the window, not ahead on the road, but up at the sky. "A helicopter."

Lan Fan's hope that they hadn't been noticed evaporated entirely when the beam continued to focus on them as they sped down the highway. Even as the welcome sign to Yin province finally passed them and they took the exit, the helicopter continued to watch them.

As soon as they merged onto the road that would take them to the core of Yin's capital city, Yīnyún, the bright lights of a police car flashed on their rearview mirror, adding to the assault on their vision. Paninya cursed, and opened her own headlights. "They know we're here, so there's no point in being inconspicuous. Might as well see better in the dark."

She pressed the pedal harder, and wove into the labyrinthine roads of the outer parts of the city. By this point, Ling and Lan Fan didn't have time to read the signs anymore, and they allowed Paninya to drive wherever she thought it would help them lose the police car.

The roads started to get narrower and narrower, until many of them were just two-lane streets bordered by run-down buildings and seedy shops. A gunshot tore through the air and a bullet managed to lodge itself on the rear window of the jeep. Ling buried his head between his arms, trying to stay low. A torrent of bullets followed the first one, peppering the metal skin of the jeep with holes, shattering one of the side mirrors, and popping one of their back tires.

Their car skidded against the road, and Paninya made a desperate turn to the right, uncaring of what she hit. When finally, there was no hope of them surviving should they remain in the uncontrollable jeep, Paninya jerked the brake, and they stopped abruptly.

"Let's get out," she told them, and Lan Fan lost no time exiting and helping Ling scramble out of his seat. They ran down the rest of the alley, hearing the police car speeding a couple of blocks away.

"Look, we need to split up." Paninya said. "There's no way we can outrun them if they're in a car, but if they suspect that we've gone our separate ways, some of them will get on foot as well. I'll leave you two," she suggested. "I'm used to the solo act, and since you're used to bodyguarding, you're better off sticking with Ling." With a quick nod, Paninya hoisted herself up on a fire escape staircase against the wall of a decrepit townhouse, and disappeared up in the dark.

Lan Fan supported Ling with her shoulder and tried to make good pace down the alley. They turned a few corners, keeping a steady jog. After a while, they could no longer make out the sound of the car pursuing them, so she assumed that either they were too far away or that Paninya was right and that the cops were now trying to track them down on foot. When Ling began to stumble, Lan Fan decided to stop by the wall of a building. There, Ling sat on the ground, panting heavily and fogging up his face mask. He then started to cough heavily again, spraying drops of blood across the mask's plastic cover. Spooked, Lan Fan crouched beside him to rub his back again, despite knowing that it was ineffective.

"Shh," she said, although she knew that shushing him would also be ineffective.

After a moment, Ling stopped. He lay his head back against the wall, breathing raggedly. When he could catch his breath, he told her, "I... I can't seem to feel my legs anymore."

Lan Fan patted his thigh, and tried to reassure him. "You're just tired." But deep down, she knew that it was an effect of the plague affecting Ling a lot faster than normal.

She heard the softest sound of soles rubbing against broken asphalt only a split-second before the sight of a gun barrel entered her peripheral vision. But that split-second was enough time for her to lean away, grab the cop's wrist to point down to the ground, and heave herself up to plant a foot against his neck. His resulting imbalance gave her the chance to pry the gun away from him, and to give him a blow against the head that knocked him to the ground. When it was clear he was out cold, she grabbed the gun and slid it into her pocket. Then she turned back to Ling.

"We have to go. More of them would follow." She tried to help him up, but she soon understood that he hadn't been exaggerating when he said he couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't even kneel. Finally, she pushed her left side against his, hoisted his arm around her shoulders with her right hand, and tried to pull him up by sheer force. Since he was taller and heavier than her and she didn't have the extra arm to wrap around his waist, it made for a very awkward balancing act.

"We can't run," he said, his voice gravelly.

Lan Fan looked around desperately, trying to see if there was any way they could escape the situation. The police car was probably parked near the vicinity of where they'd lost control of their own jeep. If they could get back there, take out anyone else who was waiting, they'd be able to use that car to get to the hospital. But they'd traveled quite a bit of distance already, and if they wanted to continue to evade more cops, they needed to go back using an indirect route.

And there was no knowing when the cops would eventually call for more back-up.

She was frantically assessing their surroundings, when in the alleyway beside the building she noticed something on the ground: it was a large manhole in a secluded area, and it evoked a flashback... and an idea.

She dragged herself and Ling towards the hole, set Ling down on the ground, and lifted up the cover. She was harassed by a nauseating stench that caused her to remember more than she cared for at the moment, but she quelled those memories as quickly as they came. Looking down, the walkway below was not that far down. The sewer was only a littler taller than Ling. Gently, she helped Ling lower himself to the bottom of the sewer, and she followed, covering the manhole back up again.

When her feet touched the ground, she found Ling sitting on the walkway, head lolling against the metal ladder. He was panting. With only just the two of them, Lan Fan didn't think it was such a bad idea if she removed his head gear for a while. It would let him breathe better... though how much better, she wasn't really sure. The odour was enough to make her gag.

Once she'd gotten it off, she found Ling's skin an ugly shade of pale, glistening with sweat. There wasn't a lot of light that streamed through the holes of the manhole's lid, but whatever managed to get through was more than enough for her to assess him. He looked terrible. Gently, she pulled him down to lie his head on her lap.

"This... this seems familiar," Ling said, and he gave her a weak smile. "Running from... from people with guns and... taking refuge with all the other crap." He laughed softly.

She smiled back, using her left sleeve to wipe the sweat from his face. His skin was heated with the blaze of fever.

"You know," he began again, closing his eyes. "They might not kill all of us."

Lan Fan stopped her ministration.

"They're only worried about the sickness spreading, so..."

"So what?" she prompted, tensing at where she felt this was going.

"They'd have no reason to harm you or Paninya."

Lan Fan almost felt like laughing at the absurdity of his implied suggestion. But her face was frozen in tight neutrality, almost as if it would shatter if she moved.

Ling opened his eyes and looked straight at her. "I always said it's my head before yours."

She felt a heaviness so uncomfortable, that she decided the best way to react was to brush it off. She rolled her eyes. "I never got the logic behind that. I'm your bodyguard, so it kind of defeats the point."

"You're still my employee so you're still my resp–"

"Ling, listen to me," she interrupted. "You've been acting strangely depressing that I can't help but assume it's the plague getting to your brain. But it's obviously affecting your decision making, so I'm going to set a few things straight.

Two years ago, you pulled me from beneath a blown-off vehicle, wrapped up my bleeding stump and sent me to a hospital where I could be taken care of. Two years later, you give me and Grandpa a decent place to live that would not drive us further into poverty, give me a steady job with great perks, and give us a new chance after being deported. What makes you think I won't give nearly as much for you? The truth is that there is no scenario here where you don't come out alive or well, because I'm not going to let that happen."

"I don't keep scorecards," Ling told her in a low voice.

"That's not my point!" she shot back. "You think I'm doing this because it's some kind of _obligation_ or to appease my own sense of debt? Fine, I'll rephrase it for you. You gave me a _friend_! Why is that not enough for you to believe I'm not about to just cast you off? You're important to me, and if you're still looking for a reason why you're different from your father, you don't have to look any farther than me. Your father tried to steal more from someone who already had little, while you... you gave me more than I could ever hope for, even when I didn't deserve it."

Lan Fan breathed deeply. She never knew she was capable of lecturing Ling, but she'd always been pragmatic, and if this was what she needed to do to knock him out of his pity party, then that was what she would do. By the way Ling was staring back at her, she wasn't sure if he was impressed or surprised or touched... but his eyes were focused on hers, unblinking and piercing.

She turned away. "Look, I'm not good at this, okay? The whole sentimental thing. I'm not the best person you can turn to to have heart-to-heart talks, and the best I can do is ramble or spurt nonsense like that night I called you beautiful."

Finally, Ling's lips broke into a soft smile. "Why, thank you Lan Fan. But don't be so harsh on yourself, because you're doing a great job. I wish I can offer you more than just the money for being a spectacular motivational speaker, actually."

Something about what he said reminded her of his bribes to get her to accept his employment offer all those months ago. It nagged at her, like an itchy restlessness, like an unexplained impulsiveness she could not quite define. Something funny and ironic, but fitting.

"Well, there _was_ something else you offered."

With that, she leaned down to him and planted her lips against his. He had bribed her with a kiss, and she could never have fathomed back then why that would be a fitting payment, but she did now.

There was no rush of adrenaline, no sense of impending doom, and Lan Fan didn't feel as if a kiss would alter their circumstances in any way at this point. As a matter of fact, it didn't feel anything like she imagined it would, nothing like how books and movies portrayed it – no impassioned heat and no jitters. It just felt natural, and for someone like her who'd spent most of her life feeling out of place, that was better than good enough.

When she pulled away, Ling's eyes was wider than she'd ever seen them. Then his expression turned crestfallen. At first she thought it was too much for him to handle.

"You realize I just coughed up blood, right? Like five times in the past hour?" he whispered, grimacing.

Lan Fan shrugged. His lips had been warm and soft.

"I just puked too!" he added. When she didn't respond, he covered his face with his hands and let out an embarrassed wail. "Ohh, I feel so unsexy right now." He coughed a bit before adding, "It wasn't supposed to happen like this!"

"Ling!" she said, exasperated. "Some people would say thank you, you know."

"That was the _first_! You know how I will remember this? With – _cough_ – me all grimy and dirty and with the scent of sewer wafting about." He punctuated his complaint with a smaller cough.

"Oh, you mean like the first time we met? Our first 'date'? Our first near-death experience? And we didn't exactly tie the knot in a garden wedding either. I don't know about you, but I think I see a pattern."

"I want a do-over when I'm hot."

"You are hot! You have a raging fever!"

"When I _look_ hot."

"Okay, remind me to kiss you again when you have an encounter with another explosion."

Ling coughed again, this time a long series of hard hacks, and Lan Fan knew their joking time was over. He'd gotten too excitable.

"Alright, here's what I'm going to do," Lan Fan said. "I will use the sewer system to try to get back to the place where we abandoned the jeep. I have a feeling that the police car will be somewhere nearby. That would be our ticket out of here. I'll try to meet up with Paninya. Can you wait here for us?"

Ling shrugged. "I won't be able to do anything else."

"I'll be thirty minutes tops. I promise. Even if I don't find Paninya, I'll come back for you."

He nodded, and she propped him back up against the wall. She stood up. When she felt the weight of the gun she'd taken from the cop in her pocket, she approached the edge of the walkway and dropped it in the sludge. No matter what happened, she wasn't going to kill again. After saying a final farewell, she ran down the walkway in the southern direction. She counted herself lucky that she had been able to tell which general direction they'd taken while trying to escape, even with the twists and turns they'd made.

When she found a different manhole, she pulled herself out of the sewers to continue her search above ground. She hoped that she'd distanced herself sufficiently from where the cop had fallen so that anyone looking for their comrade wasn't going to discover her right away. She tried to trace back their steps, using the landmarks she'd noticed before, like a peculiarly coloured high-rise in the distance, or the way the ground was sloping – uphill meant north.

She managed to stumble upon their wrecked jeep almost by accident, and at first she wasn't even sure if it really was the one they'd left behind. It looked so much worse than she expected. Even though she knew they've been shot several times, she hadn't had time earlier to really absorb the results. Lan Fan spent a few minutes roaming the nearby streets to look for the police car, and found it around the corner in the next intersection.

Along with two other cops.

Lan Fan immediately ducked back behind the wall. This shouldn't exactly be a problem, but with their guns, it might be tricky. Looking down on the ground, she searched for anything she could use as a projectile. When she found a broken bottle by a garbage bin, she picked up one of the heftier pieces and tossed it to the opposite side of her alley, past the intersection where the cops were lounging. The glass piece shattered on the other side, attracting their attention. She flattened herself against the wall, and watched as the cops emerged from the corner, their backs turned to her as they peered in the dark to see what had caused the commotion.

Losing no time, Lan Fan sprinted towards them, jumping on the nearest cop to kick him in the face. There was a snap and he fell back. Before he even hit the ground, Lan Fan was already focusing on the other one, who had already flashed out her gun. With a quick swipe of her hand against the woman's wrist, Lan Fan was able to deflect the gunshot that blasted from the cop's weapon. She followed it with a heavy headbutt against the woman's forehead, which would have worked more effectively if the cop wasn't wearing a cap. Regardless, she was disoriented enough that Lan Fan managed to disarm her. She then slammed the butt of the gun against the cop's temple, who then went sprawling on the ground, unconscious.

Lan Fan observed the two for a moment, sure that either one of them would spring back up to their feet to deal with her again. But her strikes must have been more efficient than she thought they'd be, because both cops were completely motionless on the ground.

She turned back, rounding the corner at the intersection where the cop car was waiting by the sidewalk. She got in, and disabled the speakers and the trackers on the dashboard. That would probably signal the station that the car had been compromised, but it was still better than being tracked down.

From her pocket, Lan Fan pulled out her phone. She didn't know how close Paninya was. She only hoped that Paninya would answer right away. The other girl often passed up phone calls when she was in a bind, and her phone was usually on silent so nothing would give her away. Lan Fan dialed her number anyway.

It was only after the fourth try that Paninya picked up.

"Where are you?" Lan Fan asked. "I'm in the cop car. Ling can't walk anymore, and we need to get going now."

"Tell me where to meet you."

"I'm near where our jeep died. Just turn around the intersection to the west. I'm parked here right now."

"Okay, I won't be long."

Paninya arrived minutes later, panting wildly. She threw herself in the driver's seat, prompting Lan Fan to frantically move away into the passenger side. Apparently, the thief had taken down two other policemen during their time apart. Lan Fan directed her to the manhole that led to the part of the sewage system where she'd left Ling.

"You left him in a sewer?" Paninya gasped. "Gosh, what a deserving pair you two make!"

"It was the only place I could think of to hide him!" Lan Fan said in her defense. When they reached the spot and they lifted the lid off the manhole, Lan Fan was relieved to see Ling safe and still awake.

Paninya volunteered to help him up, which would be a lot more difficult than getting him down. Just as soon as they emerged from the tunnel, Lan Fan began to hear the sound of approaching cars somewhere far off. She was certain that they must be the backups.

"Hurry!" she said. She hoisted Ling up, dragging him to the car. Paninya didn't bother replacing the lid back, and she made her way to the driver's side. Lan Fan was about to open up the door to the backseat, when a knife lodged itself right next to her hand touching the door handle. Turning around, she found the cop from earlier who had pursued them to this place. Disturbed that she didn't even notice that he'd regained consciousness, she began to contemplate dropping Ling where they stood in order to fight.

But she was surprised when it was Ling himself who acted.

"Stop!" he yelled, and the man showed the briefest reluctance in throwing his next knife, enough so that Ling could continue in one breath, "Don't move or I'll slide my mask! I'll do it even if you hit me. And you know I'll still be contagious when I'm dying."

The cop hesitated.

Ling moved a hand to his headgear's plastic mask as if to slide it up. When the cop appeared to be doubting him, Lan Fan watched as Ling proceeded to tear the entire headgear from his head. In a move that could have rivaled Izumi Curtis's hurling prowess, Ling then turned away to the sidewalk and threw up a bloody sludge that horrified even Lan Fan.

In a snap, the cop dropped his knife and dashed down the alleyway as far from them as he possibly could.

"Ling!" Lan Fan gasped. "Oh, that's really bad!" She pulled the knife that struck the car, tossed it away, and helped Ling into the vehicle. As soon as her butt touched the seat, Paninya set off.

Lan Fan thanked whatever gave her the idea to take the police car, because inside was a GPS. She grabbed it and programmed it to lead them to Yīnyún's General Hospital. It wasn't long after she'd done so that another police car appeared in the rearview mirror. And it was not long after that that it was joined by two more.

Paninya stepped on the gas a little more forcefully, and thanks to the GPS, they didn't have to grope around in the dark for how to get to their destination. They were still quite a bit away from the reach of the police cars but seeing that nobody else was on the road, it would not be long until the cops caught up sufficiently to start shooting.

Paninya drove through red lights, took bad turns and cut through curbs. She didn't care, and quite frankly, neither did Lan Fan. That was the only good thing about the lockdown. Everyone was expected to stay indoors, so their reckless driving didn't affect anyone else.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternal goose chase, the broad, white building of the hospital began to loom in the horizon. Paninya slammed the gas pedal down on the ground and didn't care what she hit – garbage bins, news posts, decorative shrubs. She went straight for the hospital gate.

The patrol guarding the area noticed them and was about to train their weapons on them, when Paninya hit the brakes, and threw herself out, hands in the air in the universal gesture of surrender.

"We're bringing in someone ill!" she yelled.

Lan Fan followed suit, knowing that many of the patrols would probably not understand Amestrian. She got out of her side of the car and repeated what Paninya was trying to say. When nobody released a bullet, Lan Fan gained enough confidence to pull Ling out the back, with his headgear back on, to show his condition to those guarding the gates.

The police cars came to a stop behind them, but by then, a stretcher was also coming out of the gates, pulled by several doctors in suits. The cops allowed Ling to be escorted into the hospital, but they pushed Lan Fan and Paninya against the car. They handcuffed the thief, and tried doing the same with Lan Fan, until they realized she didn't have another wrist.

Just when they were trying to decide what to do with her, a familiar Amestrian State militant came out of the gates, followed by a well-dressed Xingese young man. Lan Fan recognized the militant's jet black hair and suave look immediately.

"I know these kids," Colonel Mustang said. "It's alright. Let them go. We will deal with them." The young man beside him translated the words into Xingese.

Lan Fan was so glad to see the Colonel. She was so apprehensive when they left Amestris that she didn't pay attention to anyone else who'd been deployed to the other cities in Xing.

"They broke the lockdown policies!" the cop behind Lan Fan exclaimed. "And dozens of road rules!"

"I... I think there might be more to this than it seems," Mustang explained, and his companion once again translated for him. "Let them go, and we will sort it out with the Xingese officials assigned to keep an eye on us while we're here."

Begrudgingly, Lan Fan and Paninya were released. Lan Fan thanked Mustang profusely as he led them inside the hospital, but he gave them disapproving glances.

"Not cool, you three," he said. "Not cool."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, you guys, I know you're all probably tired of hearing me say this, but this chapter was honestly so difficult to write! The kiss scene was one of the earliest scenes that I came up with when I was starting this story, just like the betrayal scene where we find out that Lan Fan is in league with Henry Chu. It was one of those scenes that made me want to write this fic, and consequently, the setup for it was bloody difficult. Believe me, there were plenty of times I wanted to scrap that scene, because after going over my outline again, I've realized that there were other ways I could end this story, but none of them would involve the kiss scene in the way I imagined it.
> 
> I really hope it didn't feel forced. I tried my best to keep the characters as IC as possible, and to kiss in a way that is in character. Anyway, this entire chapter was basically a giant struggle with what I want as a writer (a kiss in the sewer where Ling and Lan Fan's roles are reversed from their first meeting) and what the story needs to play itself out.
> 
> So, one more chapter, huh? How time flies! Next chapter is all wrap-up. The loose ends will need to be tied up. I haven't visited Al, Mei and Dr. Marcoh in a while. Also, Ling's now the owner of XYZ Ltd. Hmm. And poor Grandpa Fu totally fell off the face of the earth. Poor him! He was actually supposed to be in this chapter, but I just can't make it work without making it seem totally random. We'll see what happens to Ling and Lan Fan. Ling needs to get his do-over, right?


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my, last chapter, guys!

When Ling opened his eyes, he did not know where he was nor what day it was. All he knew was that the heaviness in his head was finally absent, replaced by a clarity matching the sweet, golden stream of sunlight coming from the window. He smelled fresh air with undertones of anesthetic. He was in a hospital then.

The memories came back in a clear, steady flow. His confrontation with the vigilantes. The quarantine in the Liu hospital, and his painstaking wait for the Red Stone. Then the cop chase between Liu province and Yīnyún city. The short trip in the sewer.

The kiss.

Involuntarily, he raised his hand to his lips.

A sudden movement caught the edge of his vision, and he looked to the side to find his mother standing up from a chair.

"You're finally awake," she said with a smile. She went around the bed to sit on the edge by his right arm. She cupped his cheek with her warm hand, then ran her fingers through his hair in that motherly way that made him feel safe and comforted.

"I missed you, Ma," he whispered, his throat feeling fuzzy.

She laughed softly. "You had quite an adventure, didn't you? How are you feeling now?"

"Better," he answered honestly. "Much better."

"I'm glad to hear that," she returned. "Look, I've got some big news to tell you, but I better call the doctor first to inspect you."

Ling nodded. "I'm glad to see you though."

She gave him a kind smile, before leaving him and calling for the doctor.

Shortly afterwards, a doctor and a couple of nurses came into the room. The doctor was a kindly, middle-aged woman who checked his pulse, heartbeat, blood pressure and other parts of his body. They took some blood samples and checked his reflexes. The feeling in his legs had already come back, and he could move them around. He was so elated to be able to do that again – who knew how much he'd taken his legs for granted until he couldn't use them anymore?

During the check-up, Ling also learned that he'd been asleep and under treatment for three and a half days. His mother had flown in from Amestris just the previous night. The majority of the patients were also recovering very well, and were entering a stable state. The flow of patients being checked into the hospitals who were suspected of carrying the contagion trickled to a stop a couple of days before. Overall, the situation looked optimistic.

The doctor wrote a few things down on a pad of paper attached to a clipboard. "You just need a little bit more rest to regain your strength. We'll do a final checkup some time within the next few days to ensure that you're no longer carrying the plague, and then we can release you."

"Thank you," Ling nodded.

When they left, his mother came back in, sitting down at his bedside again. From her handbag, she pulled out some papers, which she handed to him. It took a while for Ling to realize that he was staring at some legal document. Still, it wasn't quite clear what it was for.

"I forced your father to transfer the ownership of XYZ Ltd. to you," she explained.

Shocked, Ling almost dropped the papers.

He looked back at his mother with wide, unbelieving eyes, unable to comprehend fully what that entailed. He was suddenly very grateful that he was still lying in bed, for had he been standing, he was certain his knees would have buckled.

"XYZ Ltd.?" he exclaimed. "What... how... hold on, I don't..." He gulped, trying to get his mind in order. Finally, one question slipped out. "Wait, you _forced_ my father?"

His mother gave him one of her trademark coy smiles, shrugging a shoulder. "Eh, when it comes down to it, your father would trade anything for his life."

"You threatened to kill him?" Ling asked. "Heh, why didn't I try that in the first place?"

"Hey, don't devalue all the work that you did," his mother responded sternly. "I would never have been in a position to threaten his life if it wasn't for everything you and your friends have done to put him in that interrogation cell. It was the perfect place and time to corner him, when he has very little left to lose but his life. It made him more desperate."

Ling's eyes grazed over the small font of the document. He didn't quite know what to make of this turn of events. His mother laid a hand on his shoulder.

"You know, it's easier to dismantle a company if you own it," she explained to him.

Oh. When put in that angle, it was so startlingly clear.

_He could finally put an end to this monstrous business_.

"Ling," his Ma continued. "You did it. You finally did."

He blinked, the gears of his mind working sluggishly as they tried to process this overwhelming news – _good_ news – after he'd just woken up from a three-day consciousness break.

"Can I really?" he asked. "Nobody will fight me?"

"You have full rights. We can hire a top-notch lawyer and the law will favour you anyway. The process will be messy, but so is the liquidation of any other business. Other than that, I don't see why you would have any other trouble."

Ling put the documents down on the sheets, sighing with an astounding sense of relief he never dreamed could possibly come out of him. Dissolving the company would be a headache, but at least there was a framework already in place for that. No more plotting, no more strategizing, no more walking on eggshells. Liquidation, by comparison to all the versions of Operation Greed, seemed almost like a walk in the park.

A park he'd willingly visit once his head was a little less stuffy and his limbs didn't feel like noodles.

"Thanks Ma," he said, feeling the whispers of sleep trying to lull him back to rest some more.

"No, thank _you_ , my baby boy." She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I'm so glad you're alright."

He closed his eyes then, and fell into a deep slumber even before he felt his mother move away.

The next time he woke up, someone was again sitting by the side of his bed, except it was no longer his mother.

When she noticed that he'd woken up, Lan Fan moved closer. "Hey there," she said softly. She took his hand in her only one. "How is the CEO of 7-11 doing?"

Ling chuckled. "Not quite CEO," he said, clearing his throat after hearing that his voice was a little husky. "The 'demise' would be a better word, hehe."

Lan Fan smiled. "What are you planning to do, Super Hero?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. It's kind of hard to think and sleep at the same time," he teased.

She broke out into a grin. "Fair enough."

"How about you? What happened to you and Paninya? Last time I saw you two, you were up in the arms of half a dozen cops."

Lan Fan drew a slow breath between her teeth. "Well... I have to say, it was a close call. If it wasn't for Colonel Mustang's swift thinking, I'd say we would be behind bars now. But he managed to convince the Xingese officials to pardon us, mostly by leveraging the fact that we were the ones who retrieved the Red Stones from Creta. Still, they were not happy that you were out and about, even with the suit on. I think they were more relieved when nobody else was diagnosed with the plague these last few days."

"Have there been any more deaths?" Ling asked, feeling almost afraid to bring up the question.

"Not related to the plague, no. At least not yet. There have been a couple of deaths due to panic accidents. I have heard however that some of the patients with the plague are not doing so well. I have a feeling they are the ones who are like my grandfather. Either old or unhealthy. The Red Stone is not refined enough to work well on everyone. It has probably killed off the pathogens but caused some other issue."

Ling nodded, knowing that that was probably the best-case scenario he could hope for anyway.

"Speaking of your grandfather," Ling digressed. "Have you talked with him recently? Does he know you're back here in Xing?" The last time they had visited Fu was a day before they flew back to Amestris. The old man had responded a lot better to Xing's more focused treatment; the doctors targeted each and every ailment that was the plaguing the poor man, and worked to rid him of each of them. It was overall a more effective strategy for someone like Fu, than the blanket technique the Red Stone was programmed to do. Fu and Lan Fan didn't have this choice back when they were still in Amestris, because they didn't have the funds to pay for that kind of very specific treatment. But Ling's grandfather was kind enough to goad his insurance company to cover the costs for Fu's recovery.

"I called him after I was pardoned," Lan Fan answered, her thumb brushing his skin softly. "He called me an idiot, but well... my grandfather never dwells long in the past. He doesn't waste time regretting, and especially now that he's better and I'm okay and you're okay, things are actually starting to look up, you know?"

Ling nodded. "When do you think he'll be released? I'll be happy if we can all go back to Amestris together."

Lan Fan, who'd been playing with his hand, looked up abruptly. Then she turned away.

"Right... about that. Colonel Mustang talked to me and..."

"And?"

"He said it would be for the best if Grandfather and I return to Tong Hua."

Ling froze, heart skipping a beat in an odd mixture of disappointment and dread. "Why?" For the second time, he woke up with some news he didn't know quite what to do with.

Lan Fan looked back at him sadly. "It's just time. The fake marriage certificate will not hold up forever. Henry Chu has finally been dealt with. Grandpa and I can really make a fresh start after years and years of misfortune piling up in our lives. And the first thing we have to do is officially sort out our documentation. That means starting from the source, starting from our homeland."

"Can't you sort things out while you're in Amestris?"

"It's not a good idea to keep breaking the law, Ling," she chuckled a little. "I know that sounds a little strange after we've broken several dozen in the past few months. But this is my opportunity to have a fresh start, and I want everything that comes with that. I want things to feel _right_. If nothing else, I just want to come back to you feeling like I'm finally home."

Ling was speechless for a moment, unable to come up with a single thought to address his feelings. Then he asked, "How long is that process going to take?"

Lan Fan shrugged. "It's hard to tell. We lost our official papers escaping to Amestris. We'd have to apply for pretty much every type of identification required of a person. And only after that can we apply to immigrate to Amestris, and that can take anywhere from several months to years."

"Years..." he repeated softly, trying to see if tasting the word would make him comprehend it a little more. "Well, we can talk to Ma. She's a liaison for Xingese entrepreneurs who hope to set up business in Amestris. I'm sure she's got experience with ironing out immigration and citizenship issues and the like. She'll probably know exactly the right kind of people to help you out."

"Perhaps," Lan Fan conceded. "But Tong Hua might be a little different, and there are some things that just can't be rushed. I don't like to think about the time I'll be spending in Tong Hua either, but I know it's the right thing Grandpa and I have to do."

"Do you still have family there?"

"That's one of the questions we're hoping to answer when we go back. It would be nice, I guess, to find out more about my family. But it's a little nerve-wrecking as well, to be honest. I don't have any memories of Tong Hua. I didn't have an easy life in Amestris but at least it was familiar."

"When are you leaving?"

"It might be a good idea to start the process as soon as possible. We're just waiting until Grandpa is cleared from the hospital in Yao province. He would continue his treatment in Tong Hua if needed."

They were enveloped by a glum silence that neither of them broke for a few minutes. Ling's hand was still intertwined with hers, and it felt warm, felt concrete. He didn't know why he felt so affected by this news. It wasn't even like they weren't going to see each other again. There was the internet – webcam, instant messaging. Even the good old telephone call. He could even visit from time to time.

Still. It just wouldn't be the same. It had been difficult to think of a period of time beyond the dissolution of his father's business, so he'd never really tried to imagine what he and Lan Fan were going to do afterwards. But maybe some part of him was naive enough to expect her to stay with him and his mother. A very silly part, because she'd only stayed for the job. And he knew that Lan Fan, though now a good friend of his and perhaps even more, was still too much of a pragmatist to insist on playing house.

"So," he said, breaking the silence. "I guess this is the part where we get a divorce? I'm only eighteen! I'm not ready for this!" He hid his face with his free arm, and only heard her soft laugh.

She took out the marriage certificate from her pocket. "This will be the first decoration in whatever house my Grandpa and I will have in Tong Hua. I will put it in a frame and hang it on a wall!"

Ling couldn't help but laugh at that, despite the heavy feeling in his chest. "Careful or your house might start smelling like the sewers."

"My memories as Lan Fan Yao span more than just the sewer trip," she told him. "Honestly? I'd be hard-pressed to say they were the best memories of my life since, you know, near-death experiences and all that. But my time as Lan Fan Yao was one of the few parts of my life when I felt like it was okay to be me. When I didn't have to lie. When I didn't have to be lonely."

"Stop or my head's going to get big," Ling said, and he meant it. He wanted her to stop, because he wasn't sure if he could handle the way she was talking, as if her temporary stay in Tong Hua meant anything more than exactly that: temporary.

She looked at him with a knowing smile, before leaning closer and embracing him. She laid her head on his shoulder, her arm around his waist.

Ling took a moment to savour her warmth, knowing it might be a while before he could feel it again. It reminded him of that night she confessed everything, when she exhausted herself sobbing and fell asleep on his shoulder, and for hours he'd just held her. When he carried her to her room and arranged her on the bed, he remembered feeling so overwrought with emotions. He'd been angry at his father, horrified by Lan Fan's experience, and yet so so relieved that Lan Fan had never meant to betray him. It was similar now. There was relief at having gained control of XYZ Ltd. But there was also a sense of loss.

"I'm going to miss you," he said into her hair. "I will visit you in Tong Hua when I can."

"And we can call each other. Chat online or something," Lan Fan added. "Let's not get too caught up in the farewells. We went up against your mastermind of a father and his multi-billion sens business, stolen precious stones from the land of the plague, stopped a war from starting, and prevented hundreds of people from dying. I think if there's anyone who can endure some months or years of separation, it would be us."

"Of course," Ling said, trying to sound optimistic. "But it will be a lesson in patience, that's for sure. Especially since I'm still counting on that do-over."

Lan Fan rose from her position and smirked playfully at him. She made a move as if to lean closer to his lips, but he stopped her with a finger to her mouth.

"Nuh-uh! I'm not sexy yet," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "I was just playing. I know you haven't brushed your teeth in over three days."

"Okay, now you're just making me feel bad."

They joked around some more, but after a few minutes, a nurse came in and told Lan Fan that visitor hours were over. It was time for him to rest again.

The next time Ling woke up, he was feeling much better, and the only remnants of sluggishness he felt was due to having spent too much time in bed. He was allowed to freshen up a bit, and then food was delivered to his room where he ate with much gusto. The meal hadn't been anything spectacular, and judging by how many people were in the care of the hospital, Ling wouldn't be surprised if it was more meager than usual. Still, it was a joy to finally get to eat after days of being hooked up to a machine for nourishment.

He was hardly finished when a soft knock came through the door. It opened with a nurse shyly leading a tall, Xingese man into the room. She bowed slightly before backing out of the door as quietly and modestly as she came.

Ling stared at the man who came in. He had straight long hair plaited into a braid down his back. He looked only slightly younger than Ling's own father. The embroidered silken vest depicting the revered dragon of Xing all but gave the man's identity away.

"King Xiao?" Ling managed to croak out, unbelieving that the leader of Xing himself was in his own hospital room.

The king gave a curt, not unkind nod that affirmed Ling's question. His face was an impenetrably polite facade, not stern but also not weak. Ling gulped, wondering what kind of world he'd awoken in when every time he regained consciousness, some kind of surprising news awaited him.

"And you are Ling Yao," the king said, his tone more of a statement than a question. Ling nodded anyway. Xiao grabbed the chair near the door and set it by the foot of the bed. He settled down on the seat, facing Ling directly. Ling set his chopsticks down on the small ceramic plate beside his bowl. "The son of the infamous Henry Chu."

"Well, one of them anyway," Ling added, and Xiao smirked. Henry's reputation as a tomcat was almost as widely known as his reputation for being a cutthroat businessman.

"I'm not going to take much time. I don't have the flair for dramatics like many of my siblings do. I just came to tell you, thank you," Xiao stated.

Ling was surprised.

"Between the few of us who know exactly what went down and what your father is capable of, I understand the great lengths you and your friends have gone through to prevent the disaster he was brewing. I remember my own battle of wits with that man decades ago, and as individuals, he stood more of a chance at acquiring the throne. The reason I'm the one sitting in it is because I asked for help from the other clans. Know that I am very grateful for your efforts."

"Oh, uhm, you're welcome, I guess," Ling stammered.

"But that's between the few us, like I said." Xiao leaned back against the chair and rubbed his temple. "To the rest of the nation, however, we're going to need something more than gratitude."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know if the Ambassador of Amestris has already mentioned to you, but we're going to have to demand some compensation for the damages. I cannot be seen as a leader who allows violent attacks on my people. Even now, the peace in Xing rests on a balance so vulnerable that any external factor may tip it one way or another. And as far as I know, Amestris is in the same boat, having just survived a civil war and a war with Aerugo."

"All right, but why are you telling me this? Aren't you going to have to meet with President Grumman to iron out the details?"

"I'm telling you, because what I'm going to ask for might involve you or your friends. At the very least, it involves your knowledge. I want the Red Stones."

Ling sighed. "At this point, I'm guessing everybody does," he muttered under his breath. "You don't know the monstrosity behind how those Stones were created."

"No, I do not," Xiao admitted. "And that's exactly what I want to know. How would one go about creating a Red Stone? Or better yet, improve upon the ones we already have?"

Ling narrowed his eyes. "By torturing and experimenting on people! That's the only way the synthetic cells can learn how to cure!"

Xiao stared back at him, face impassive but thoughtful. He didn't speak for a long time, but stood up and walked over to the window. After a few moments of silence, he actually chuckled.

"I can see now why it was my brother who was able to develop it then, the sly bastard."

"I wouldn't call him sly," Ling said. "I'd call him heartless."

Xiao spun around, an air of decisiveness surrounding him. "It might be true that Amestrian researchers cannot find a way to develop the Red Stones without experimenting on people. But the bioengineering field in Xing is booming and flourishing. Just because Amestris cannot do it, doesn't mean the Xingese won't be able to do it either. I will ask Grumman for the rights to all the documents regarding the development of the Red Stone, including the ones pilfered from your father's laboratories. There's a chance Xing might be able to improve the process, and I'm not going to let an opportunity like this pass by. This is the price I ask."

"And how about the people of Creta?" Ling asked. "President Grumman had meant for the project to help _them_."

"We will not neglect them," Xiao promised. "All I want is for Xing to have some stake in this groundbreaking medical development. The results of the project, on the other hand, can be distributed internationally."

"You mean you just want the credit?"

"Some of it, yes," Xiao admitted. "And I'm sure that Amestris will appreciate the help we can provide, so I believe this is a win-win situation all around."

It was hard to argue with that. Putting it that way, it didn't even sound as if handing the secret of the Red Stone over to King Xiao was the kind of crippling payment that Ling thought he'd demand to save face from the recent catastrophe. If anything, it sounded like the Xingese were the ones doing Amestris a favour. After all, the project was rotting away in some secret office in Amestris. This could be a better alternative.

"I understand," Ling finally said. "But really, you might be able to find people more knowledgeable about the subject when you meet President Grumman and talk about it. I hope you two come to a quick agreement. If anyone else finds out about this, many people would vie to discover the secret, and I'd hate to see illegal experimentation cropping up."

"Then we hope for the same thing," Xiao said. "I'm glad we've agreed on that."

Ling could only shrug, unsure of why the king himself would need his approval. It really was a matter between him and Grumman, not Ling.

"Again, I thank you for your valiant efforts these past three days," Xiao continued, as he made his way to the door. "I've been led to believe that you have a connection with the President, so if you can make my intention clear to President Grumman, I'll be even more grateful."

As Xiao turned the knob of the door, Ling suddenly remembered a pressing issue that had recessed to the back of his mind.

"Hold on, sir!" he called out. "I have a request, if I may."

"A request?" Xiao lifted an eyebrow. "Requests to kings usually go through a different channel."

"Well then, as a nephew to his uncle."

Xiao paused to listen.

"The Chu clan... what happens to them? If you're thinking of punishing them for what my father did, may I request that you rethink your decision? The clan relies on funds received from my father, that's true, but I don't think they should be blamed for his actions. My father does incredibly cruel things, but those are decisions he makes by himself."

Xiao's face clouded with confusion. "Punish? Now where did you get that idea?"

Ling was taken aback. "From the ambassador! I mean, at least when he related his conversation with you, I got the impression that you were going to retaliate against the Chu clan because Dad endangered hundreds of people to pressure the President to reject the fair trade agreement."

"Is that so?" Xiao rubbed his chin. "Quite frankly, I don't remember mentioning anything like that. It didn't even cross my mind to punish the Chu clan. Henry Chu himself is a pain in the butt, but the Chu clan itself hardly ever makes it into the political radar."

Ling scratched his head, clearly confused. "Oh well... that's good news, I guess. It's just that – well, I don't want to blame the Ambassador or anything because I'm sure he's quite reliable – he mentioned that you were planning to take care of the Chu clan after this entire fiasco is over."

"Yes," Xiao agreed. "Like I said, the clan itself is overlooked by the government. I believe it is time to stop neglecting them and see to their needs. Something has been preventing them from getting the appropriate resources to live a decent life – proper education, food and housing, all these things. Ever since the Empire fell and the 50 Families System was disestablished, the clan has trickled out of the government's notice. If it's true that they have to rely on outside sources like that snake Henry Chu to make ends meet, then I'm not doing a very good job as a king, am I? I need to take better care of my people."

Then it clicked in Ling's head. _Take care_. It was never meant to be an ominous phrase. It was literal.

Embarrassed, he ran a hand through his loose, messy hair. "Ah, I see. I apologize. I misunderstood."

"Is that not how you say it in Amestris? 'Take care'?" Xiao asked with a genuinely amused expression on his face.

"Well, yeah, but it does have some negative connotation as well," Ling admitted. "I apologize. I assumed the worst. Must have been the paranoia at that time."

Xiao nodded his head. "No worries. No harm done. Now, rest up. I heard the hospital might release you soon. I barely managed to catch you here, so long was the process of clearing out people from the quarantine in Liu!" He exited the room and closed the door softly.

Ling fell back to his bed, clutching his face with embarrassment. All that time he spent worrying! It was all for nothing! It was all just a misunderstanding, a turn of a phrase, and it caused him to descend into the pits of self-pity, worrying that he'd become just like his own father. He probably annoyed Lan Fan sick with his attitude.

He rolled around the bed, trying to get rid of the shameful feeling until his hip knocked against the wooden support for the meal, and he almost spilled his soup on the sheets. He stopped and he laid back on the bed for a few moments, trying to focus on the feeling that at least an entire clan would not have to suffer because of the way his operation turned out.

After he'd gotten over the wave of embarrassment, he finally laid still to assess the situation.

His father was in jail. XYZ Ltd. was Ling's. He and his mother already had plans on how they could put an end to the company. The people affected by the plague were all slowly recovering. The Red Stone project might finally get resurrected after years of abandonment. The Chu clan was safe, at least as safe as they could hope to be. Lan Fan was going to try and get her life back together, and she would – he hoped very much – return to him eventually.

Overall, things seemed like they were going to be okay. The situation appeared positive, hopeful.

This strange, newly found freedom from imminent problems made Ling realize that he had no idea what he was going to do with his life from here on out. Only now that all his plans were over that he realized exactly the gravity of the time and effort he'd dedicated just to accomplish this one thing. It was almost like he'd paid his own kind of collateral. Did things really work that way? Sacrifice one thing just to obtain another?

Ling sighed, and pushed such philosophical thoughts from his head. Now was the beginning of a new phase in his life, and he intended to start it by trying not to drive himself crazy.

-o-

_10 Months Later_

Winry marveled at the sleek metal containers of Auto-Mail's brand new servers. Running her fingertips against the sheen of the chrome, she squealed in delight. Even in the dim light of the garage where the boxes had been deposited, the new servers looked so appealing.

"Do you like it?" Ridel LeCoult asked, pulling the bubble wrap from the other servers that hadn't been unpacked yet. They just received the shipment that morning, but the order had gone out months before, asking for the latest technological specs to be included in their hardware. Each server had a computing power sixteen times Auto-Mai's previous top-notch servers.

"Like it? I love it so much I want someone to make an air freshener with the scent of _Brand New Servers_ , so I can spray it everywhere!"

Winry heard Edward gag a bit from somewhere behind her, and she gave him a flat look.

"Why are you making that face for?" she reprimanded. "With these babies, you won't be complaining about the slowness of the online network anymore! Honestly, I'd have thought you would show a little bit more gratitude."

"You know we could have gotten the platinum containers instead of the chrome!" Edward responded. "The platinum also came with free engravings, which we could have used to design the servers with this!" He held up a piece of paper with a pattern of a skeleton that managed to look debonair and bland at the same time.

"We don't have time to waste engraving these things!" Winry exclaimed. "Nobody will see them anyway. All we're going to do is keep them in our storehouses."

" _I_ will see them," Edward pouted, tucking the pattern away. "Fine! Whatever, I guess I shouldn't complain when we basically got them for free."

Well, that was not entirely true. The new servers, as well as the new databases they bought the previous month, were all funded by the money that Auto-Mail received from the liquidation of XYZ Ltd. Ridel LeCoult even managed to hire a partner to help upgrade the Auto-Mail software that sustained the online network. He had mostly recovered unscathed from Henry Chu's attack of his home; the only permanent damage he'd suffered was a broken bone in his leg that didn't quite heal straight, and so he walked with a slight limp. Still, after hearing that Henry Chu had finally and rightfully been jailed, he was determined to continue his work with Auto-Mail, and hired another engineer to help him keep up with the constant upgrades that Auto-Mail required.

The liquidation of XYZ Ltd. brought many changes to Auto-Mail. Contrary to its name, XYZ Ltd. wasn't actually a limited corporation, and all the ownership belonged to Henry Chu – the misleading name only served to make it appear as if he didn't have a chokehold on every move the company made. So it wasn't that difficult for Ling to just hire a liquidator and tell him that he no longer wanted the company to exist. The most difficult part of the process was trying to collect the assets – many people still had debts owing to 7-11, and not all of them were able to pay it back immediately. Ling, with the help of some of their friends in the State Military, decided to fully convert these remaining debts to government loans; those owing money to XYZ Ltd. would continue instead to pay their debt to the government but under much more comfortable terms – and to everyone's relief, no burdensome collaterals. As for the company itself, accumulating all the assets together still greatly eclipsed any other outstanding balances.

It meant that Ling Yao was very, _very_ rich.

But like the charitable man he always was, he didn't keep the majority of the money; almost none of it really. A large part, he gave to Auto-Mail. He said it was payment for all the trouble they'd gone through to help him achieve his goals. Winry felt a little overwhelmed by the amount – a hundred million sens was really quite a _lot_ , and so she and Edward, along with her grandmother Pinako and the other admins, budgeted the money and decided how they were going to use it.

A portion went to network upgrades. That included the new databases and servers they ordered. Each admin received a package containing new equipment to help them do their jobs.

The other fraction went to new projects. Winry realized that people's heavy reliance on the black markets sometimes did not help their clients get back on their feet – for quite a few, they became stuck in the cycle of underground activities. To help put a stop to this, they produced a subgroup of Auto-Mail that was actually above ground. Fully legalized, they would provide grants and subsidies to anyone who wanted to go back to school, receive skills improvement and training, start their own business, and the like. Rosé, for example, received a bursary for her nursing degree. Even Paninya managed to get licensed as a freelancer for high-rise projects.

Winry sometimes still found it a little funny that although Auto-Mail had become very much acquainted with a group of State Militants, and to a certain extent, even the President himself, they didn't seem very strict about forcing Auto-Mail to disband. The last time she and Colonel Mustang got in touch, he told her that their investigation of the black-markets was postponed, ever since the whole Henry Chu scandal blew up. Many of those in the government who had in one way or another used some of XYZ Ltd.'s services were hit particularly hard.

The Colonel, however, gave her a little tip. If she could slowly pull Auto-Mail out of the underground entirely within the next few years, the government's eventual crackdown of the black markets should affect them very little.

"Oy, what time is it?" Ed asked, snapping out of his sulkiness with a startle. "I have to drive Alphonse and the shrimp to the airport!"

"Does that mean you're not going to be helping set all these up?" Winry gestured to the dozens of boxes containing new servers.

"Well, it wasn't my _fault_ the delivery man had to give them today! Alphonse has been looking forward to this trip for months!" Ed said defensively. He pushed himself off the desk he'd been leaning against. Ridel's garage doors were still open, and Ed walked through it, but before he approached his car parked by the curb, he turned around and waved back at Winry. "You're taking a cab home?"

"Yes, or maybe I'll ask Mr. Garfiel to pick me up," she answered. "Be careful, okay? Say goodbye to Al for me."

Ed gave her a quick salute, before entering the car and driving away.

Back in the garage, Winry began to help Ridel unpack the other servers, savouring the feel of their smooth, shiny cases.

-o-

"And what do I say if I want to haggle in the market?" Al asked, toying with his passport. Mei was sitting beside him in Izumi's parlour, and in front of them was Dr. Marcoh who was enjoying a cup of tea.

"It depends," Mei answered. "There are many types of market in Xing. If you just go to a supermarket, there's no haggling involved obviously. But if you're in one of those local, shanty markets, I'm going to have to say you're a little at a disadvantage when it comes to bargaining."

"Why's that?" Al said.

"Well, because they'll think you're clearly a tourist! Everybody will think you have more money than you actually do. How about this? Any time you want to visit a market, just let me know and I'll tag along! I'm the best bargainer you can ask for!"

Al returned her grin, and looked at Dr. Marcoh. He was watching them with amusement.

"How about you, Dr. Marcoh?" Al asked. "Will you be exploring Xing's day life while we're doing our research?"

"Ah, I'm not exactly a social butterfly, I'm afraid," Dr. Marcoh admitted. "If there's time in between my work, I might drop by some of the scenic places or the historical monuments, but I expect to do some serious heads down work with little breaks in between."

Three months ago, they received an invitation to participate in a joint program between Amestrian and Xingese researchers. After President Grumman had agreed to King Xiao's terms, the Red Stone project was immediately reopened. All of the existing documents were copied and sent to Xing; all the researchers and doctors who had participated and who did not perish during the civil war were required to attend an interview. When Dr. Marcoh went to Xing, he happened to mention that he was already working with two youngsters who were interested in finding a different way to manufacture the medicine. Al and Mei then found a formal invitation in their mailboxes from Xing's very own Minister of National Health to partake in the project.

It was an opportunity that Al was more than willing to grasp. He was going to be starting his University career this year anyway, and what better way to kick it off than doing a co-op in one of Xing's best schools, working with top-notch faculty and industry leaders?

He turned back to Mei. "How about you? Are you sure you don't mind transferring in the middle of your high-school career?"

"Oh psh!" she waved a hand dismissively. "I'm going to be getting advanced credits from that project! How can I _mind_? I'll basically guarantee myself a place in any college I want to apply to once I have those credits. I'm more worried about you, to be honest. Won't you get homesick? What about your brother?"

"I'm sure I'll be a little homesick at first," Al admitted. "But I'd be a fool if I don't take advantage of this. And Brother would be all right, I'm sure of it."

"He does not want to come along?" Dr. Knox asked. "I hear he's studying neuroscience, isn't that right? He might benefit from the environment and activities there."

"Nah, my brother would like to stay here and keep an eye on Auto-Mail," Al answered. "Winry is also going to school after all, so she might need back-up from time to time. Hehe, I think he's more suited to the dynamic, high-pressured world of trying to juggle an education and underground networking."

Mei gave him a doubting glance. "And what we're going to do in Xing is not dynamic and high-pressured enough for him? Give me a break! Dr. Marcoh is going to test out his hypothesis of using simulated data to train the Red Stones! Only Xing has the proper equipment with the capacity for that kind of heavy-load training! If that's not dynamic enough for your brother, then I don't know what is!"

"Running around yelling at people, I think, is more his style," a voice came from the doorway to the kitchen. Izumi entered the visitor's parlour, carrying a bowl of mixed fruits. "Which I bet is exactly why he's not here yet. Make sure you call your brother to remind him you have to be at the airport an hour from now," she told Al.

Dr. Knox gave her a grateful smile for the snack.

"And how are you, ma'am?" he asked. "How has the woman who brought Henry Chu down to the ground – literally – been doing?"

"Same old, same old," Izumi answered, sitting on one of the plush chairs in the room. "Though I'd appreciate if people would keep a lid on the Henry Chu stuff. I find that customers are now even more scared to come into the shop, more so than when it was just my burly husband they thought they had to look out for."

Al chuckled a little. Despite Sig being tall and husky and having the look of a ruthless hunter, the man actually had a gentle soul and even gentler temperament towards those around him. Because they'd grown up with the Curtises, Al and Edward could only find amusement in the wary ways of younger kids who tried to buy some meat from their shop.

Al's phone beeped with his brother's ringtone, and he fetched it from the counter beside him. Pressing the main button, the screen woke to the flashing sign of a new message. When he opened it, he read Edward's text that he'd be home in thirty-minutes.

"All right, brother is coming!" Al announced. "We better start getting ready for our ride to the airport."

Mei downed several slices of the fresh fruit, before jumping out of her seat to check on their bags.

-o-

There were three forced resignations in the Ministry of Defense and another four in the Department of Education. Overall, Riza Hawkeye wouldn't consider it bad. It was just that one of those who'd been forced to resign was in a very important senior position who was _actually_ good at his job. It was unfortunate really that they'd discovered he made some risky negotiations with XYZ Ltd. He'd traded information on his fellow workers in exchange for five hundred thousand sens.

All but one of the State Militants who'd been removed from their positions had bartered confidential government information.

Riza knew that from the perspective of a State Militant who had the welfare of her country and fellow citizens in her best interests, these men deserved what they got. However, a part of her also felt pity. The civil war that had dethroned Bradley from the presidency had crippled many people financially. State Militants hadn't been exempt from the effects. She could understand in some way the desperation that had driven these otherwise loyal men to seek help from Henry Chu and did not have a choice but to pay the price he asked.

As soon as Ling was well enough to come back to Amestris, he didn't waste any time taking care of XYZ Ltd. In the process of collecting assets, Ling had hauled all of the company's contracts to light; while there were some rather benign deals, many head dealt with illegal matters. It was here that they found out about the ones involved in the government. There had always been an unspoken understanding that at least some of the State Militants might be siphoning money off from the loan shark, but they hadn't been able to put names to them until now. And for a long time, President Grumman had applied some leniency when it came to financial deals with Chu – after all, he himself had made use of the man's business.

"Are you sure this is the best time to leave?" Riza asked as she sorted through the pile of late paperwork that the Colonel had managed to finish only that day. "There are holes in the ranks."

"We won't be leaving for several weeks yet," the Colonel answered. "We still need a detailed plan for how we can start alleviating the nation-wide blockade on Creta. I think by that time, we'd have filled out the positions."

Colonel Mustang rubbed his head for a moment, before reaching out to take the next stack of paperwork from her.

"Besides," he added. "I want to ensure we've done all we can here in Amestris. We've lost the trust of many people when Chu managed to almost instigate a war. And I don't blame them – it's only been several years since the Sanitary Movement and we've just drafted the treaty with Aerugo when this all happened. The civilians must think we're trying to run a circus with their corpses."

Riza nodded, understanding the Colonel's sentiments. The truth was that as hard as they were working in the office and out, the majority of Amestrians had suffered from conditions much worse than they had. Every time they made progress, something had forced them to take a step back. It was time for things to really change.

Ten months ago, when Xing notified them that many of the patients have begun to recover, President Grumman had arranged a team to provide a narrative that would quell the national panic that had erupted in both Amestris and Xing. When people had heard of the Cretan plague spreading, many people had attempted to move away, up north to Drachma or to a totally different continent. Even when they said that the outbreak had been contained, many stayed away until months later when they've observed that nobody else was falling ill.

Fortunately, nobody in their team felt any qualms about outing Henry Chu's machinations. Pointing fingers at one man was something the Colonel considered unclassy, since he knew that a host of different things had caused the situation to happen. But Chu was the catalyst and chessmaster who used the rules of the game to his advantage. And at a time of great stress, it was much easier for people to accept an uncomplicated story of good versus evil.

Still, the government received some flack for having allowed Henry Chu to operate 7-11 for so many years. The most ironic thing was that Riza was sure many of those who were criticizing them the heaviest had at one point or another made use of the company's money lending service as well. Another thing that happens during a time of great stress was that curtains drew back to reveal hypocrites. She could only shake her head.

The door opened and Falman came in, followed by Havoc. Both gave quick salutes to the Colonel, before taking a seat in front of his desk.

"You got reports for me?" the Colonel asked.

"Yes sir! Our intelligence network has found out that the plague has receded from the majority of urban places in Creta. There are only a few sites that are suspected to still be rife with it, including forests and the rural villages in the mountainous areas in the south. These are currently sanctioned off."

"Perfect," the Colonel replied as he readily accepted a written document with more details about the topic. "President Grumman wants us to brainstorm some ideas for how we can begin helping the Cretans recover from the devastation of the plague. We no longer have the Red Stones that Henry Chu managed to create, but Xing has begun to make copies of them by cloning the synthetic cells. We know these Red Stones are not yet perfect, but they're the best we have. At least until the collaborating researchers find a way to improve the cells without... you know, sacrificing other people."

Havoc snickered. "Remind me to thank the President. Pulling us out of the black market investigation to focus more on Creta saved our hides."

Very few other State Militants had been aware of their involvement with Auto-Mail and, specifically, Ling's endeavour to end XYZ Ltd. To the majority of those in the government, Colonel Mustang and his team had accidentally stumbled upon the insidious plans of a multi-billionaire, and ended up helping save the country for it. Little did they know.

The investigation into the underground scene would be deferred for now, seeing that there were a lot more urgent things to take care of. But yes, Riza agreed that it had been lucky for them that her wise grandfather decided to re-assign their team to a different project, and hence, distanced them from their connection to the black markets. For now, they would focus on relations with Creta.

Colonel Mustang chuckled. "Well, don't let anyone see your enthusiasm. Going to a country rumoured to still be riddled with illness isn't something that any other State Militant would view as a positive turn in their career. Try to at least pull a straight face."

"Say instead that you're proud to have been reassigned to a more noble pursuit," Falman suggested to Havoc. "I'm sure you'd be thrilled once we're knee deep in the forest swamps of Creta."

Seeing Havoc's grimace made them all snicker.

-o-

To Ling, the problem with missing out on an entire semester was that he had to make up for it through summer school. And so while his friends spent the summer attending internships, vacationing, visiting beaches and tourist spots, he'd spent it heads down in his books. And as the summer drew to a close, the pressure of finals came looming on the horizon.

Sitting in one of the outside cafeterias in his campus, Ling pushed at a clump of overcooked rice noodles that he'd bought from one of the nearby food trucks. His commerce textbooks lay in front of him on the table, a pad of paper sat by his hand for notes, and his laptop was replaying a video tutorial that their TA for the course had recorded.

Overall, it was what Ling would usually consider a perfect study setup.

Except he kept getting distracted trying to book a ticket for a five-day trip to Tong Hua right after his last exam. He and his Ma already agreed that he could take the week off between the end of his summer semester and the onset of his next year. He'd been so busy these past few months that the only communication he'd had with Lan Fan was through webchat and short emails. Although they did so almost on a daily basis, it was still different from getting to hang out with her physically.

It was not like he didn't appreciate their alternative methods of trying to keep each other updated. Even though their messages and conversations were usually short, they were frequent enough that he rarely ever missed anything of importance in Lan Fan's life there in Tong Hua. He'd known when she suffered from home-sickness, which she confessed as ironic, since Tong Hua was supposed to be her homeland. He'd known when her grandfather finally managed to find a job as a highly sought-after instructor of martial arts. Fu rarely fell ill anymore; he still succumbed to the common cold and the pains of old age, but no longer was he bedridden or constantly under the duress of an unknown ailment. Ling had even known of their attempts to search for relatives. So far, they've only found one of Lan Fan's aunts from her mother's side, whose family was happy enough to be reconnected with them.

He browsed through the list of deals presented to him by the online agency he was using. He didn't need to book a hotel – Lan Fan and Fu would arrange a guestroom for him in their house. He just wanted a flight that didn't leave too soon after his exam that he might not be able to catch it if something happened, but at the same time, he didn't want it too late in the night either.

Flipping between the tabs of his browser to watch the commerce video while trying to decide which flight deal he should take, Ling didn't notice the person approaching him, until they had settled a plastic cup, filled with an orange drink and tapioca pearls at the bottom, on the opposite side of his table.

Surprised that someone would try to claim a seat without politely asking first, Ling looked up with a frown, then froze.

"I hope this seat isn't taken?"

Ling opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't form the words to even begin answering. When the person slid gracefully into the seat across him without waiting for his response, his mouth also gave up trying to voice an answer, and instead curled into a small, disbelieving smile.

"So how should we do this?" the girl asked. Her hair was slightly shorter than Ling remembered last seeing it, and she wore shades against the bright glare of the late summer sun. Still, even though he hadn't seen her physically for ten months, he would be a complete idiot if he would let sunglasses and trimmed hair fool him into failing to recognize her.

Ling grinned, his brain finally catching up. "Well," he said, putting down his pen, his face suddenly warm. "I vaguely remember having a penchant for doing things backwards. Near-death experience, moving in together, marriage, then a first kiss. So I don't know about you, but I think it's time for proper introductions."

She laughed. "Fine. Hello, I'm Lan Fan _Tseng_. Nice to meet you."

Ling stretched out his hand to take the one she offered. "And I'm Ling Yao." After they'd shaken hands, Ling could no longer control his laugh, and he let it out in merry abandon. He felt all jelly-like inside with glee, and he had to put his head down on the table for a moment to catch his breath. When he'd collected himself, he looked back up to find Lan Fan looking back at him with a soft smile.

"What are you doing here?" Ling finally asked. "I was just going to book a ticket to visit you in Tong Hua! Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I could have prepared for this! I could have picked you up from the airport. Oh man! Like... this is so weird!"

"I wanted to surprise you, of course!" Lan Fan said. "And I didn't want to bother you too much. After all, you're studying for exams."

Ling rolled his eyes. "Really? That's your excuse? No way! I'll ditch back cramps and eye strain anytime to meet up with you."

Lan Fan grinned and took a sip of her Tealicious bubble tea.

"So, how long are you staying?" Ling asked excitedly, moving some of his stuff away so she has more space. "And more importantly, _where_? You know you're more than welcome to stay at my house with Ma. And Grandpa Fu? Is he with you? Are you two vacationing together?"

"Actually," Lan Fan began. "I'm staying."

Ling blinked. "Wait, what?"

"I'm staying," she repeated.

"But, only a month ago you told me that the immigration process might take longer than you hoped!" Ling exclaimed. The process of getting everything sorted out had been a headache-inducing web, at least as far as Lan Fan had described it during their conversations. A couple of times, Ling's mother had flown out to Tong Hua to help sort out some things. Starting over wasn't easy. Lan Fan even admitted that had not Colonel Mustang arranged for accommodations before they went back, they would have nowhere to live. Most superintendents required official identification documents and proof of income, things that they were still weeks or months from acquiring.

And only after months of struggling and waiting for the bureaucracy to deliver results did they manage to finally receive all the documents they needed: birth certificates, passports, health cards, social insurance and other various licenses. It was only then that they started to apply to immigrate back to Amestris.

"Yes, that's right," Lan Fan agreed. "And grandfather and I decided we didn't want to put our life on hold for much longer than we needed to. So, we tried to find ways we could come here despite not having residential permits yet."

"And? Did you find any?"

"I applied to Amestris University as an international student for the winter session. I barely made the deadline! But I managed to get accepted."

"You mean _here_? At _this_ school?" Ling asked excitedly. "Congratulations!"

Lan Fan nodded. "Thank you! You don't know how long I've wanted to go to school, but I couldn't afford it. I start next January. As for Grandfather, he's here as an expat. The dojo where he found a job in Tong Hua is expanding their business to western Xing and Amestris. Since he's one of the most gifted teachers, they agreed to send him to their new location here."

"Here, where?" Ling asked. "Nearby? Near my house? Next to it, maybe?"

Lan Fan laughed. "Ah no, we won't be neighbours, I'm afraid. But it's close enough to Dublith. We've secured an apartment in Awbeziz."

"Whoa, but that's only one train station south of Dublith!"

"I told you it's close!"

Ling pumped his fists in the air. "I cannot believe _this_! Does Ma know about this? It's so hard to wrap my head around the fact you managed to surprise me."

"Well, I don't want to out Ms. Yuna directly, but let's just say I took a hint or two from her on how we can live here while our immigration application is still being processed."

Ling groaned. "Ugh, I'm so going to get her back for this!" He tipped his head back, watching the cerulean shade of the mid-afternoon sky, the pressures of studying for his exam having long slipped from his mind. Lan Fan was back...

"Ah, I'm so rude!" Ling straightened himself and started gathering his things. "Look, I still have lots of time to study, but you just got back. Where are my manners? Let's go eat!"

Lan Fan pointedly stared at the container that held his sticky rice noodles.

"What?" he asked her. "You don't think I can eat more even after I just ate? It's like you don't even know me!" He placed a hand on his heart in mock display of hurt.

He stuffed his things into his bag, and began to lead her out of the campus where they could find his favourite creperie.

"So, when did you actually get back?" Ling asked.

"Two nights ago," Lan Fan answered.

"Ah, so that's why you didn't return my messages until this morning," he slung an arm around her shoulders. "You sneak. I would sulk if I didn't miss you so much."

He saw the dusting of pink that emerged across her cheeks in a shy blush.

"That's true," she answered. "We have a lot to catch up on."

"We sure do."

They walked along the small park that bordered the campus on the way to the dessert place. Ling noticed there was a bounce to his gait as they walked, and he almost laughed again. Lan Fan must have felt him stifling it too, because she looked up at him with a questioning gaze.

"What?"

Ling grinned playfully. "How's the sun hitting me?"

She peered beyond him, to the trees and to the way the rays of the sun were streaming through the gaps in the leaves and branches. They created a pattern of shadows that danced across Ling's right side.

"I guess it hits the way it naturally would? Nothing unusual? Should I be concerned?"

Ling rolled his eyes. "Fine, if you don't want to take the bait I'm throwing to fish for compliments, I'll just spell it out for you." He pulled his arm away from her shoulders to let loose his hair that was tied up in a pony-tail. He shook it out a bit, so that it fell gently around his shoulders, framing his face. "I think I'm really hot right now." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, causing Lan Fan to burst into laughter.

"You're impossible!" she said.

"What? I really meant it when I saw I wanted a redo," Ling said. "Please?"

"You know that it doesn't count as a first kiss anymore, right?"

"It counts as the first kiss I had while I'm lucid and can actually stand on my own two feet," he said defensively. "I think that's very important."

Lan Fan rolled her eyes but relented with a shy smile, and stepped closer to him. The last time this had happened, she had taken him by surprise and he had no time to prepare. But this time, he watched as she started to rise on her tiptoes, watched as her face got closer, and his heart beat so quickly with adrenaline that he was sure Lan Fan would feel it. When their lips finally met, he felt her smile against him. She tasted like peach bubble tea.

She pulled back quickly, however. "Short one for now," she said, linking her arm around his to pull him along. "We're _not_ going to make out in public."

That was fine by Ling – and it probably showed too, knowing how wide his smile was. There would be many more opportunities now that she was back home.

Talking and laughing excitedly, they made their way to the creperie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END! Ling and Lan Fan are now college students, haha; we all know how that's gonna go down!
> 
> Now, maybe I should call this section Chicken Soup for the Soul, hehe, because this is going to be a little mushy.
> 
> So, so, so. We've finally arrived. At the end. For the first time in 12 years, I have managed to finish a story. I cannot thank you guys enough for accompanying me throughout my journey in completing this project. Though it's been frustrating at times, I believe this is one of my best fanfiction, if only for the reason that I enjoyed writing it immensely. Every chapter there was something for me to look forward to writing.
> 
> Before I go on any further, I really want to thank each and every person who read my story and those who reviewed and encouraged me. To those who reviewed each chapter and stuck with me from beginning to end (you know who you are ^^), thank you. To those who were intrigued by the first few chapters but lost interest afterwards, thank you to you too, because you gave me the momentum to really get the ball rolling. And to those who hopped on the bandwagon near the end, thank you for encouraging me to get to the finish line.
> 
> TL;DR (You can probably stop reading at this point. Haha, the rest is pretty much self-indulgence.)
> 
> The Heist was an important project for me as a writer, because it was the one that I made myself promise to finish. I have always had trouble finishing stories I start. But I know that if I wanted to be a writer in the future, I have to prove to myself that I can finish something. No matter what happens, regardless of how much feedback I get. And now, finally, I have my proof. I might have a long way to being an amazing writer, but at least now I've shown myself that at least I'm capable of accomplishing an important prerequisite: completing a story!
> 
> The Heist is also very important to me for another reason. Last year, I really struggled with my home life. There were a lot of changes and stress and sadness. There was a point when I didn't update for a long time, and I thought maybe I should just focus on more important things going on in my life. But I tried not to listen to that, because I knew it would be just another excuse to not finishing what I started. So I worked on The Heist in the little bits of time I could catch between all the crazy stuff going on. Actually, looking back, it's probably one of the things that helped me through that rough time, because at least I could distract myself for a while and immerse myself in something that I loved.
> 
> And thank you for helping me along!
> 
> So what's next? Well, my love for LingFan knows no bounds. I have another story I can now focus on: Sincerely Yours. It's going to be shorter, and so I would probably space out my updates accordingly. In between those, you can expect some fanarts on my art blog on Tumblr, **mander-draws** , where I also post fanarts from other fandoms (but mostly it's LingFan).
> 
> Other than that, I've been itching to start on my own original project. I will be posting more info on that on my blog as well, so if you're interested, just check my blog out for updates once in a while. Personally, I know that I get somewhat distraught when a fanfiction writer I like abandons fandom to concentrate on personal projects. I'll let you know though that I will always be a fangirl at heart. Even though I have original projects in mind, I get my natural highs from fandoms, and so you can always find me around!


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